CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2020

The 2020 CASE Annual Report includes an overview of our Centre’s work, updates from our staff, PhDs, and associates, and summaries of publications and events from the past year. It also features 16 articles showcasing th...Read more...

SPDO Knowledge Exchange Brief

Geographical inequalities in England on the eve of the pandemic

Polina Obolenskaya

This briefing forms part of the Nuffield Foundation funded research programme, Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes in a Changing Britain (SPDO), which examines social policies and social inequalities between the ...Read more...

CASEbrief

Little fish, big streams: How do early in-class maths ‘ability’-groups and early teacher judgements relate to primary school children’s later maths self-concept?

Tammy Campbell

This paper summarises research examining predictors of primary school children’s maths self-concept at age 11. It finds that the in-class ‘ability’ group children were placed in four years earlier, at age seven, strongly...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

The Ruling Parties’ Record on Homelessness and Complex Needs (May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020)

Suzanne Fitzpatrick and Glen Bramley

This paper provides a comparative analysis of homelessness policy goals, expenditure and outcomes across Great Britain in the post-2015 period, setting these developments in their longer-term perspective. In England, a r...Read more...

CASEpaper

The birthweight effects of universal child benefits in pregnancy: quasi-experimental evidence from England and Wales

Mary Reader

Over a decade ago, in April 2009, the UK Labour government introduced the Health in Pregnancy Grant (HPG), a cash transfer of the equivalent of child benefit over the third trimester (£190) as a lump sum to all pregnant ...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

The Conservative Goverments’ Record on Social Security: Policies, Spending and Outcomes, May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020

Kerris Cooper and John Hills

This paper uses the Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes framework to evaluate how social security policies evolved, how public spending changed, the effects of these on the generosity of the system, and evidence ...Read more...

SPDO Knowledge Exchange Brief

Ethnic inequalities on the eve of the pandemic

Kerris Cooper

This research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, evaluated the impact of changes in social policies on inequalities since 2015 up until the eve of the pandemic. This briefing focuses on the findings that relate to ethni...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Overview Paper

The Conservative Governments' Record on Social Policy from May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020: Policies, Spending and Outcomes

This overview report provides an assessment of social policy developments under the three Conservative Governments that were in power between May 2015 and the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The report provid...Read more...

CASEreport

Community Responses to the Coronavirus Pandemic: Case Study Report

Ellie Benton and Anne Power

The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown that followed created a unique set of circumstances: people over 70 and those with underlying health conditions were forced to self-isolate; day to day activities stopped; people be...Read more...

CASEreport

Community responses to the Coronavirus Pandemic: How mutual aid can help

Ellie Benton and Anne Power

The beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic caused panic over job losses, food and toiletry shortages and social isolation, over and above the health impacts of the virus. People wanted to help on a mass scale and there was ...Read more...

CASEreport

Opening Doors: An evaluation of the London Borough of Newham's Housing First Pilot Project

LSE Housing and Communities, Laura Lane, Anne Power and Bert Provan

In 2018, the London Borough of Newham (LBN) commissioned LSE Housing and Communities to undertake an evaluation of their "Housing First" pilot project. The main objectives for the evaluation were: 1. To understand the pr...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

The Conservative Governments' Record on Early Childhood from May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020: Policies, Spending and Outcomes

Kitty Stewart and Mary Reader

This paper uses the Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes framework to evaluate the record of successive Conservative administrations on early childhood during the period between 2015 and the eve of the COVID-19 pa...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Reweighted nonparametric likelihood inference for linear functionals

Karun Adusumilli, Taisuke Otsu and Chen Qiu

This paper is concerned with inference on finite dimensional parameters in semiparametric moment condition models, where the moment functionals are linear with respect to unknown nuisance functions. By exploiting this li...Read more...

CASEpaper

Did the introduction of the benefit cap in Britain harm mental health? A natural experiment approach

Aaron Reeves, Mark Fransham, Kitty Stewart and Ruth Patrick

In November 2016, the UK government announced they would be lowering the benefit cap, the total amount a family with no-one in full-time employment can receive from the government in social security. This policy change r...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

The Conservatives’ Record on Adult Social Care: spending, policies and outcomes in England, May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020

Tania Burchardt, Polina Obolenskaya and Jarrod Hughes

This paper uses the Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes framework to evaluate developments in adult social care policies in England during the period between 2015 and the eve of COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

The Conservatives' Record on Compulsory education: spending, policies and outcomes in England, May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020

Ruth Lupton and Polina Obolenskaya

This paper reviews education policy in England for the period since the Conservative Government took office in 2015 to the eve of COVID-19 pandemic. We consider the effects of policies on the school system, teachers, cur...Read more...

CASEreport

Tackling Homelessness: Case Studies

LSE Housing and Communities

This report documents 17 case studies of homelessness provision and support in the United Kingdom. Promoting shared learning amongst the providers of homelessness support can improve the capacity and delivery of homeless...Read more...

CASEreport

Homelessness and Housing First: A guide to good practice

LSE Housing and Communities

This report explores the homelessness context in the UK, its causes, and the government's approach to tackling homelessness. It also provides evidence of successes and failures of three government funded Housing First pi...Read more...

CASEbrief

COVID-19: has the pandemic affected relationships between children and their non-resident parents?

Caroline Bryson and Stephen McKay

The well-being and outcomes of children living in separated families are associated with the quality of their relationship with their non-resident parent, and child maintenance provided by that parent. It is therefore im...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Government financing of R&D: A mechanism design approach

Saul Lach, Zvika Neeman and Mark Schankerman

We study how to design an optimal government loan program for risky R&D projects with positive externalities. With adverse selection, the optimal government contract involves a high interest rate but nearly zero co-finan...Read more...

SPDO Research Note

The post war welfare state: stages and disputes

Howard Glennerster

It has been suggested that the COVID epidemic, and its profound economic and social consequences, may produce major changes in the dominant ideas that help set the boundaries to social action. This note reflects on sig...Read more...

CASEreport

City of Walbrzych: Technical Assistance for Mitigating the Social and Economic Challenges of The City

Maciej Borsa, Aleksandra Jadach-Sepiolo and Bert Provan

This report addresses options for city renewal in the medium sized, but shrinking, Polish city of Walbrzych. It provides an overview of the impact of the rapid closure of the mining industry in the mid-1990s, in terms o...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Jackknife Lagrange multiplier test with many weak instruments

Yukitoshi Matsushita and Taisuke Otsu

This paper proposes a jackknife Lagrange multiplier (JLM) test for instrumental variable regression models, which is robust to (i) many instruments, where the number of instruments may increase proportionally with the sa...Read more...

SPDO Research Note

Does COVID-19 represent a 'new Beveridge' moment, a crisis that will wash away, or a call to action?

Tania Burchardt

Report of a roundtable discussion on theories of welfare...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2019

The 2019 CASE Annual Report includes: an overview of our Centre’s work; updates from our staff, PhDs, and associates; and summaries of events held and publications over the past year. It also features 16 articles showcas...Read more...

CASEpaper

When and why might choice in public services have intrinsic (dis)value?

Aveek Bhattacharya

Governments in several countries have sought to increase choice in public services. Proponents claim the value of such choice is both instrumental (it improves outcomes) and intrinsic (choice is valuable in itself). Yet ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Misallocation in the Public Sector? Cross-Country Evidence from Two Million Primary Schools

Torsten Figueiredo Walter

This paper examines how the allocation of teachers across public primary schools differs between countries and the extent to which this can explain differences in educational outcomes. First, I build a new global school-...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Development Policy through the Lens of Social Structure

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Erika Deserranno, Ricardo Morel, Imran Rasul and Munshi Sulaiman

This paper studies how the social structure of village economies affects policy implementation by local agents. We randomly select one of two viable candidates to deliver an agricultural extension program in rural Uganda...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Second-order refinements for t-ratios with many instruments

Yukitoshi Matsushita and Taisuke Otsu

This paper studies second-order properties of the many instruments robust t-ratios based on the limited information maximum likelihood and Fuller estimators for instrumental variable regression models under the many inst...Read more...

CASEpaper

The financial resilience of households: 22 country study with new estimates, breakdowns by household characteristics and a review of policy options

Abigail McKnight and Marc Rucci

Some households are less resilient to financial shocks than others. This may be because they have low levels of savings, have limited access to affordable credit, already hold high levels of debt or lack the skills requi...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Policy decisions and evidence use among civil servants: A group decision experiment in Pakistan

Laura Metzger, Adnan Qadir Khan and Teddy Svoronos

In a lab-in-field experiment with elite civil servants in Pakistan, we investigate whether groups outperform individuals in a two-staged task which requires effective use of data and evidence. We also study how efficient...Read more...

Journal Article

Longitudinal and Life Course Studies:

Young British adults homeownership circumstances and the role of intergenerational transfers

Ellie Suh

Despite the continuing preference for homeownership, it has become increasingly difficult for young adults to own a home in Britain. House prices have increased faster than real earnings between the mid-1990s and the 201...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Why Do People Stay Poor?

Clare Balboni, Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Maitreesh Ghatak and Anton Heil

There are two views as to why people stay poor. The equal opportunity view emphasizes that differences in individual traits like talent or motivation make the poor choose low productivity jobs. The poverty traps view e...Read more...

CASEbrief

The National Living Wage and falling earnings inequality

Abigail McKnight and Kerris Cooper

The more generous National Living Wage replaced the National Minimum Wage for employees aged 25 and over in April 2016. In April 2020 it is due to increase to 60% of the average wage. In this policy brief we assess the ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Intra-household inequality and adult material deprivation in Europe

Eleni Karagiannaki and Tania Burchardt

In most research on living standards, material deprivation is measured using household-level material deprivation indicators. However, if resources are not shared equally within households, conventional material deprivat...Read more...

CASEreport

Extending the "move-on" period for newly granted refugees: Analysis of impacts and costs

Bert Provan

This report considers the impact of extending the "move-on" period (currently 28 days) which is allowed to refugees, once they are awarded Leave to Remain in the UK. This question arises for those refugees who were in re...Read more...

CASEreport

SUMMARY – Living on Different Incomes in London: Can public consensus identify a 'riches line'?

Tania Burchardt, Abigail Davis, Ian Gough, Katharina Hecht, Donald Hirsch, Karen Rowlingson and Kate Summers

There is widespread public and political concern about economic inequality in the UK today but relatively little research exploring people’s opinions about high incomes, wealth and what it means to be rich. This innovati...Read more...

CASEreport

Living on Different Incomes in London: Can public consensus identify a 'riches line'?

Abigail Davis, Katharina Hecht, Tania Burchardt, Ian Gough, Donald Hirsch, Karen Rowlingson and Kate Summers

London is home to vast and visible economic inequality, where the richest 10 per cent own 61 per cent of overall wealth, while at the same time four in ten Londoners do not earn enough for what is considered by the publi...Read more...

Journal Article

Journal of Poverty and Social Justice:

Universal simplicity? The alleged simplicity of Universal Credit from administrative and claimant perspectives

Kate Summers and David Young

A key aim of Universal Credit is to simplify the social security system. While several aspects of its introduction have received critical attention, this overarching aim continues to receive acceptance and support. Drawi...Read more...

CASEreport

Understanding the relationship between inequalities and poverty: policy toolkit

Irene Bucelli, Abigail McKnight and Kate Summers

This toolkit examines policies with a potential 'double dividend': policies that could lead to reductions in both poverty and inequality in the UK. The selection of policies has been informed by a larger research progra...Read more...

CASEreport

Launch of policy toolkit: poverty and inequality reduction policies

Irene Bucelli, Abigail McKnight and Kate Summers

This toolkit examines policies with a potential 'double dividend': policies that could lead to reductions in both poverty and inequality in the UK. The selection of policies has been informed by a larger research progra...Read more...

CASEbrief

Caught between the local and the (trans)national: EU citizens at the front-line of German welfare policy

Nora Ratzmann

The study reflected on what happens when EU migrant applicants claim poverty-relieving, non-contributory UB II benefits in local German job centres. The data challenged the common pretence of EU policy debates that the s...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Estimation of (static or dynamic) games under equilibrium multiplicity

Taisuke Otsu, Martin Pesendorfer, Yuya Sasaki and Yuya Takahashi

We propose a multiplicity-robust estimation method for (static or dynamic) games. The method allows for distinct behaviors and strategies across markets by treating market specific behaviors as correlated latent variable...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Switching Regressions with Imperfect Regime Classification Information: Theory and Applications

V A Hajivassiliou

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Econometrics Paper

Estimation and Specification Testing of Panel Data Models with Non-Ignorable Persistent Heterogeneity, Contemporaneous and Intertemporal Simultaneity, and Observable and Unobservable Dynamics

V A Hajivassiliou

This paper proposes efficient estimation methods for panel data limited dependent variables (LDV) models possessing a variety of complications: non-ignorable persistent heterogeneity; contemporaneous and intertemporal en...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric intermediate order regression quantiles

Hidehiko Ichimura, Taisuke Otsu and Joseph Altonji

This paper studies nonparametric estimation of d-dimensional conditional quantile functions and their derivatives in the tails. We investigate asymptotic properties of the local and global nonparametric quantile regressi...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Estimation of Varying Coefficient Models with Measurement Error

Hao Dong, Taisuke Otsu and Luke Taylor

We propose a semiparametric estimator for varying coefficient models when the regressors in the nonparametric component are measured with error. Varying coefficient models are an extension of other popular semi...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Novel Approaches to Coherency Conditions in Dynamic LDV Models: Quantifying Financing Constraints and a Firm's Decision and Ability to Innovate

V A Hajivassiliou, Frédérique Savignac and Frédérique Savignac

We develop novel methods for establishing coherency conditions in Static and Dynamic Limited Dependent Variables (LDV) Models. We propose estimation strategies based on Conditional Maximum Likelihood Estimation for simul...Read more...

CASEpaper

Understanding the relationship between inequalities and poverty: a review of dynamic mechanisms

Magali Duque and Abigail McKnight

In this paper we examine the evidence on how dynamic mechanisms, which include earnings and income mobility, poverty dynamics, social mobility and the accumulation of risk and advantage over the lifecycle, may be a contr...Read more...

Special or Commissioned Report

Report for Age International:

Understanding, Beliefs and Treatment of Dementia in Pakistan

Asghar Zaidi, Rosalind Willis, Nicolas Farina, Sara Balouch, Hussain Jafri, Irfan Ahmed, Quratulain Khan and Rubina Jaffri

This study investigates the experiences of people with dementia and their family carers, as well as wider understanding of the condition in Pakistan. Methodology Interviews with 40 dementia patients and caregivers, ...Read more...

CASEreport

Estate Regeneration and Social Value

Anne Power and Bert Provan

Home Group is committed to assessing the social value to low income communities of regeneration and upgrading. This research was commissioned by Home Group and closely links to their recently developed “Customer Promise”...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

Physical safety and Security: Policies, spending and outcomes 2015-2020

Kerris Cooper and Nicola Lacey

This paper sets out to evaluate the development of policy in relation to physical safety and security in the period since the Conservative Government took office in 2015. Whilst people’s physical safety and security depe...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Jackknife, small bandwidth and high-dimensional asymptotics

Yukitoshi Matsushita and Taisuke Otsu

This paper sheds light on problems of statistical inference under alternative or nonstandard asymptotic frameworks from the perspective of jackknife empirical likelihood (JEL). Examples include small bandwidth asymptotic...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

On the uniform convergence of deconvolution estimators from repeated measurements

Daisuke Kurisu and Taisuke Otsu

This paper studies the uniform convergence rates of Li and Vuong's (1998) nonparametric deconvolution estimator and its regularized version by Comte and Kappus (2015) for the classical measurement error model, where repe...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2018

This is our annual report for the calendar year 2018, which includes some new features - CASE notes, highlighting 10 key insights from our research this year, ‘2018 in numbers’, and a fresh format for the report as a wh...Read more...

CASEpaper

Understanding the relationship between poverty, inequality and growth: a review of existing evidence

Abigail McKnight

This paper reviews the theoretical literature and empirical evidence on the relationship between poverty, inequality and economic growth. It finds evidence that economic inequality is good for growth as well as new conv...Read more...

CASEreport

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - Managing the Unmanageable: Debt and Financial Resilience in Newham

Laura Lane and Anne Power

An executive summary of CASEreport 123 (https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cr/casereport123.pdf) which aims to understand the links between work, low pay, benefits, credit, debt, and savings among low-income households i...Read more...

CASEreport

Managing the Unmanageable: Debt and financial resilience in Newham

LSE Housing and Communities, Laura Lane and Anne Power

This research aims to understand the links between work, low pay, benefits, credit, debt, and savings among low-income households in East London. Our work around debt and financial resilience in Newham goes back a number...Read more...

CASEpaper

Understanding the relationship between inequalities and poverty: mechanisms associated with crime, the legal system and punitive sanctions

Magali Duque and Abigail McKnight

This paper outlines the various issues pertaining to how crime, the legal system and punitive sanctions may provide a mechanism through which inequality is positively related to poverty. We analyse trends in crime rates...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

Flat-lining or seething beneath the surface? Two decades of changing economic inequality in the UK

Polina Obolenskaya and John Hills

This paper analyses what happened to economic inequalities in the United Kingdom in the two decades from 1995-96. In aggregate, inequality changes were unremarkable, especially by comparison with sharp increases in the ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Inequalities in the experience of early education in England: Access, peer groups and transitions

Tammy Campbell, Ludovica Gambaro and Kitty Stewart

This paper summarises the output of a Nuffield-funded research project exploring inequalities in three aspects of children’s experience in early education in England. The main focus of the project was on ‘peer effects’ i...Read more...

CASEbrief

Inequalities in the experience of early education in England: Access, peer groups and transitions

Tammy Campbell, Ludovica Gambaro and Kitty Stewart

There are long-standing disparities in child development between children from different backgrounds. Progress in narrowing gaps is slow and differences remain wide, especially by household income. This Nuffield Found...Read more...

International Studies Paper

Japan's response to Britain's wartime naval appeals, 1917-19

Ian Nish

This pamphlet continues our series of publications devoted to conditions in Japan in the period of the Taisho Emperor who reigned from 1912 to 1926. Taisho Studies have tended to be neglected because it was a comparative...Read more...

CASEpaper

Reducing Mommy Penalties with Daddy Quotas

Allison Dunatchik and Berkay Özcan

This paper investigates whether daddy quotas - non-transferable paternity leave policies - mitigate motherhood penalties women face in the labor market. Using the introduction of a daddy quota in Quebec, Canada as a natu...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Score estimation of monotone partially linear index model

Mengshan Xu and Taisuke Otsu

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Econometrics Paper

Average derivative estimation under measurement error

Hao Dong, Taisuke Otsu and Luke Taylor

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CASEreport

LSE-IMF Joint Workshop Social Protection in a Changing World

A Brandolini, Tania Burchardt, Domingo Hernandez, Clement Julien and Thomas Stubbs

This is a summary report of 'Social Protection in a Changing World' - a workshop jointly sponsored by the LSE and IMF and held at the London School of Economics in November 2018. As part of its strategic focus, the LSE ...Read more...

CASEreport

Retrofit to the Rescue: Environmental upgrading of multi-storey estates

Alice Belotti, Ellie Benton, Laura Lane and Anne Power

'Retrofit to the Rescue' looks at the ambitious refurbishment of Wilmcote House in Portsmouth for a new study on the social impact of retrofit works. In 2010 LSE Housing and Communities were asked to conduct interviews...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

What does Brexit mean for social policy in the UK? An exploration of the potential consequences of the 2016 referendum for public services, inequalities and social rights

Kitty Stewart, Kerris Cooper and Isabel Shutes

The paper was written as part of a major research programme on trends in the distribution of social and economic outcomes in the UK and the design and impact of social policies. The paper seeks to map out the potential i...Read more...

Journal Article

Demography:

IncomeRelated Gaps in Early Child Cognitive Development: Why Are They Larger in the US Compared to the UK, Australia and Canada?

Bruce Bradbury, Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Washbrook

Previous research has documented significantly larger income-related gaps in children's early cognitive development in the United States than in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. In this study, we investigate th...Read more...

CASEreport

Understanding the Relationship between Poverty and Inequality, Overview report

John Hills, Abigail McKnight, Irene Bucelli, Eleni Karagiannaki, Polly Vizard, Lin Yang, Magali Duque and Marc Rucci

An understanding that poverty and inequality are inextricably linked has given rise to a number of large international organisations setting joint inequality-poverty reduction targets on the basis that poverty cannot be...Read more...

Journal Article

Child Indicators Research:

Child Poverty Amongst Young Carers in the UK: Prevalence and Trends in the Wake of the Financial Crisis, Economic Downturn and Onset of Austerity

Polly Vizard, Polina Obolenskaya and Tania Burchardt

The article provides the first estimates of prevalence and trends in child poverty amongst young carers aged 5–19 in the UK using specialized income data from the Family Resources Survey / the Households Below Average In...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Causal inference on regression discontinuity designs by high-dimensional methods

Yoici Arai, Taisuke Otsu and Myung Hwan Seo

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Journal Article

Oxford Economic Papers:

The ‘mighty girl’ effect: does parenting daughters alter attitudes towards gender norms?

Mireia Borrell-Porta, Joan Costa-Font and Julia Philipp

We study the effect of parenting daughters on attitudes towards gender norms in the UK; specifically, attitudes towards the traditional male breadwinner norm in which it is the husband's role to work and the wife's to st...Read more...

CASEbrief

Money and Meaning: How working-age social security benefit recipients understand and use their money

Kate Summers

This CASEBrief summarises Kate Summers’ doctoral research. The research aimed to develop a detailed picture of how working-age social security benefit recipients understand and use their money. Forty-three indepth, quali...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric Estimation of Additive Model with Errors-in-Variables

Hao Dong and Taisuke Otsu

In estimation of nonparametric additive models, conventional methods, such as backfitting and series approximation, cannot be applied when measurement errors are present in covariates. We propose an estimator for such ...Read more...

CASEpaper

The net effect of housing-related costs and advantages on the relationship between inequality and poverty

Lin Yang

This paper reviews the evidence of how the welfare state can shape the relationship between economic inequality and poverty through the channels of taxes, transfers and public good provision. In particular, we examine ho...Read more...

CASEpaper

The relationship between poverty and inequality: Resource constraint mechanisms

Lin Yang

This paper examines how inequality from the interaction of income and housing circumstances changes the relative position of households in the income distribution, and influences the incidence and socio-demographic prof...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

City-region devolution in England

Ruth Lupton, Ceri Hughes, Sian Peake-Jones and Kerris Cooper

This paper explores recent developments in the devolution of powers to subnational governments in England and its implications for social policy making and the distribution of economic and social outcomes. It is general...Read more...

Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Paper

Country level devolution: Scotland

Mark Stephens and Suzanne Fitzpatrick

The Scottish Parliament has been in existence for nearly two decades. Its powers have been extended to cover a number of taxes and areas of social security in recent years. This paper examines the use of these powers and...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Likelihood ratio inference for missing data models

Karun Adusumilli and Taisuke Otsu

Missing or incomplete outcome data is a ubiquitous problem in biomedical and social sciences. Under the missing at random setup, inverse probability weighting is widely applied to estimate and make inference on the popul...Read more...

CASEpaper

Non-resident parents: Why are they hard to capture in surveys and what can we do about it?

Caroline Bryson and Stephen McKay

The under-representation of non-resident parents in surveys has long hindered research on family separation, leaving key evidence gaps for those making policy and practice decisions related to separating and separated fa...Read more...

CASEreport

Never Just a Number: Evaluating the impact of a holistic approach to UK poverty

Ellie Benton, Laura Lane, Anne Power and Bert Provan

The core aim of the research is to show the social value of CAP’s work in tackling poverty and related problems of debt, joblessness, dependency, and low capacity. The evaluation covers the four main strands of CAP’s app...Read more...

Journal Article

Journal of Social Policy:

Formal and Informal Long-Term Care in the Community: Interlocking or Incoherent Systems?

Tania Burchardt, Emily Jones and Polina Obolenskaya

Help with activities of daily living for people in the community is provided through formal services (public and private) and informal (often unpaid) care. This paper investigates how these systems interlock and who is a...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Inequality Measurement and the Rich: Why inequality increased more than we thought

Frank A Cowell and Emmanuel Flachaire

Many standard inequality measures can be written as ratios with the mean in the denominator. When one income moves away from equality, both the numerator and the denominator may vary in the same direction and such indic...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2017

Kerris Cooper and Abigail McKnight

A summary of the output of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion: The work programme of the Centre includes monitoring social spending, policies and outcomes in the UK, international comparisons of poverty and of t...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Eliciting and Utilizing Willingness-to-pay: Evidence from Field Trials in Northern Ghana

James Berry, Greg Fischer and Raymond Guiteras

Using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism, we estimate the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for and impact of clean water technology through a field experiment in Ghana. Although WTP is low relative to the cost, demand ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Does Part-Time Mothering Help Get a Job? The Role of Shared Custody in Women’s Employment

Carole Bonnet, Bertrand Garbinti and Anne Solaz

Though shared custody arrangements after divorce are more and more frequent in many countries, little is known about their economic consequences for parents. By relaxing family time constraints, does shared custody help ...Read more...

CASEreport

Overcoming the Stigma of Social Housing: Can social housing rebuild its reputation?

Anne Power and Bert Provan

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CASEreport

Overcoming the Stigma of Social Housing: Findings from Tenant Think Tanks

Anne Power

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CASEreport

Child poverty and multidimensional disadvantage: Tackling "data exclusion" and extending the evidence base on "missing" and "invisible" children (Overview report)

Tania Burchardt, Polly Vizard, Polina Obolenskaya, Isabel Shutes and Mario Battaglini

This report provides an overview of the findings from the Nuffield Foundation research project, ‘Multidimensional child poverty and disadvantage: tackling “data exclusion” and extending the evidence base on “missing” a...Read more...

CASEpaper

Experience of multiple disadvantage among Roma, Gypsy and Traveller children in England and Wales

Tania Burchardt, Polina Obolenskaya, Polly Vizard and Mario Battaglini

Roma, Gypsy and Traveller children across Europe experience high levels of disadvantage and have repeatedly been identified as a priority in European Commission policy documents, yet they are often missing or invisible i...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Inference Without Smoothing for Large Panels with Cross- Sectional and Temporal Dependence

Javier Hidalgo and Marcia M Schafgans

This paper addresses inference in large panel data models in the presence of both cross-sectional and temporal dependence of unknown form. We are interested in making inferences without relying on the choice of any smoo...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Likelihood corrections for two-way models

Koen Jochmans and Taisuke Otsu

The use of two-way fixed-effect models is widespread. The presence of incidental parameter bias, however, invalidates statistical inference based on the likelihood. In this paper we consider modifications to the (profile...Read more...

CASEreport

Private Renting: How can social landlords help?

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Econometrics Paper

Adaptive Inference on Pure Spatial Models

Jungyoon Lee and Peter M Robinson

We consider adaptive tests and estimates which are asymptotically efficient in the presence of unknown, nonparametric, distributional form in pure spatial models. A novel adaptive Lagrange Multiplier testing procedure f...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Tackling Youth Unemployment: Evidence from a Labour Market Experiment in Uganda

Livia Alfonsi, Oriana Bandiera, Vittorio Bassi, Robin Burgess, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman and Anna Vitali

We design a labour market experiment to compare demand-side and supply-side policies to tackle youth unemployment, a key issue in low-income countries. The experiment tracks 1700 workers and 1500 firms over four years to...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Information theoretic approach to high dimensional multiplicative models: Stochastic discount factor and treatment effect

Taisuke Otsu and Chen Qiu

This paper is concerned with estimation of functionals of a latent weight function that satisfies possibly high dimensional multiplicative moment conditions. Main examples are missing data problems, treatment effects, an...Read more...

Book

Decent incomes for all: Improving policies in Europe

Edited by Bea Cantillon, Tim Goedemé and John Hills

This book aims to shed new light on recent poverty trends in the European Union, responses by European welfare states, and how progress can be made to realize a decent income for all. The text analyzes the effect of ...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Inheritance Taxation: Redistribution and Predistribution

Frank A Cowell, Chang He and Dirk Van de gaer

It is well known that taxes on the transfer of wealth typically raise very little revenue. However, this does not mean that they are ineffective as tools for redistribution. In this paper we show how important such tax...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Condorcet was Wrong, Pareto was Right: Families, Inheritance and Inequality

Frank Cowell and Dirk Van de gaer

Using a simple model of family decision making we examine the processes by which the wealth distribution changes over the generations, focusing in particular on the division of fortunes through inheritance and the unio...Read more...

Special or Commissioned Report

LSE Consulting Report for Public Health England:

Children's Wellbeing and Development Outcomes for Ages 5, 7 and 11, and their Predictors

Mireia Borrell-Porta, Kerris Cooper, Joan Costa-Font, Chiara Orsini, Berkay Ozcan and Lucinda Platt

In this report, the authors aim to identify the factors present during pregnancy, infancy, and the early years of life that are associated with a wide range of outcomes for children at ages 5, 7, and 11 by conducting...Read more...

CASEpaper

Multidimensional poverty and income inequality in the EU

Lin Yang and Polly Vizard

This paper examines the link between the way a country's most deprived individuals experience disadvantage across multiple dimensions of life and how this may relate to its level of income inequality. By expanding the de...Read more...

CASEpaper

The empirical relationship between income poverty and income inequality in rich and middle income countries

Eleni Karagiannaki

This research draws on inequality and poverty statistics from various databases including the European Union Statistics on Incomes and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), the OECD Income Distribution Database (IDD) and the Worl...Read more...

CASEpaper

The relationship between poverty and inequality: Concepts and measurement

Lin Yang

This paper defines and maps the variety of different concepts and measures of poverty and inequality that have been developed and used in research. These reflect differing views of what constitutes a minimum acceptable q...Read more...

CASEpaper

Inequality, poverty and the grounds of our normative concerns

Irene Bucelli

Policy debates surrounding poverty and inequality try to find practical solutions to what we should do to tackle these phenomena. But what are the grounds for being concerned about poverty or about inequality? To what ex...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Inference on distribution functions under measurement error

Karun Adusumilli, Taisuke Otsu and Yoon-Jae Whang

Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Relative error accurate statistic based on nonparametric likelihood

Lorenzo Camponovo, Yukitoshi Matsushita and Taisuke Otsu

This paper develops a new test statistic for parameters defined by moment conditions that exhibits desirable relative error properties for the approximation of tail area probabilities. Our statistic, called the tilted ex...Read more...

Special or Commissioned Report

Research report for Oxfam:

Double Trouble: A review of the relationship between UK poverty and economic inequality

AbigailMcKnight, Magali Duque and Mark Rucci

The link between inequality and poverty has been highlighted by a number of international organisations, which have outlined a series of policy recommendations supporting the view that high levels of inequality need to...Read more...

Book

Heat, Greed and Human Need
Climate Change, Capitalism and Sustainable Wellbeing

Ian Gough

Watch Professor Ian Gough present his new book which aims to build an essential bridge between climate change and social policy: Download slides from the launch event here This book buil...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Risk-based Selection in Unemployment Insurance: Evidence and Implications

Camille Landais, Arash Nekoei, Peter Nilsson, David Seim and Johannes Spinnewijn

This paper studies whether adverse selection can rationalize a universal mandate for unemployment insurance (UI). Building on a unique feature of the unemployment policy in Sweden, where workers can opt for supplemental ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The Political Impact of the Internet on US Presidential Elections

Valentino Larcinese and Luke Miner

What are the political consequences of the diffusion of broadband internet? We address this question by studying the 2008 US presidential election, the first political campaign where the internet played a key role. Drawi...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Effects of English Secondary School System Reforms (2002-2014) on Pupil Sorting and Social Segregation: A Greater Manchester Case Study

Stephanie Thomson and Ruth Lupton

The English secondary school system has been undergoing rapid change. 60% of secondary schools are now Academies. Opponents of these changes fear, among other things, greater social segregation, while supporters argue t...Read more...

Journal Article

The Political Quarterly:

Mixing Communities? Riots, Regeneration and Renewal on Problem Estates in France and England

Bert Provan

Riots, social exclusion, and endless improvement programmes have been a feature of the poorest neighbourhoods in France and England for the last thirty-five years or more—particularly focused on large social housing esta...Read more...

CASEpaper

Does Money Affect Children's Outcomes? An update

Kerris Cooper and Kitty Stewart

This report provides an update to Does Money Affect Children’s Outcomes?: A Systematic Review, published in October 2013. Using systematic search approaches, we review the literature examining the relationship between ho...Read more...

Special or Commissioned Report

LSE Consulting Report for the Social Mobility Commission:

Low Cost Home Ownership Schemes

Bert Provan, Alice Belotti, Laura Lane and Anne Power

Low Cost Home Ownership (LCHO) schemes are common in many countries. OECD evidence suggests this is based on the idea that they promote wealth accumulation, better outcomes for children, and higher levels of social cap...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Tony Atkinson and his Legacy

A Brandolini, Stephen P Jenkins and John Micklewright

Tony Atkinson is universally celebrated for his outstanding contributions to the measurement and analysis of inequality, but he never saw the study of inequality as a separate branch of economics. He was an economist in...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Likelihood inference on semiparametric models: Average derivative and treatment effect

Yukitoshi Matsushita and Taisuke Otsu

In the past few decades, much progress has been made in semiparametric modeling and estimation methods for econometric analysis. This paper is concerned with inference (i.e., confidence intervals and hypothesis testing) ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Measuring individual well-being: A multidimensional index integrating subjective well-being and preferences

Lin Yang

Policymakers have begun looking for measures to assess the well-being of their citizens beyond GDP per capita and disposable income levels. However, the multidimensional and subjective nature of human well-being makes de...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2016

Kerris Cooper and Kitty Stewart

Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Welfare and Inequality Comparisons for Uni- and Multi-dimensional Distributions of Ordinal Data

Frank A Cowell, Martyna Kobus and Radoslaw Kurek

Decision makers and social planners are often faced with a problem of evaluating distributions of ordinal variables i.e. variables for which there are no numbers but only the ordering, such as, for example, self-reported...Read more...

Book

Good Times, Bad Times
The Welfare Myth of Them and Us

John Hills

Revised edition. Previous edition: 2015. Two-thirds of UK government spending now goes on the welfare state and where the money is spent – healthcare, education, pensions, benefits – is the centre of political and pub...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Empirical likelihood for high frequency data

Lorenzo Camponovo, Yukitoshi Matsushita and Taisuke Otsu

With increasing availability of high frequency financial data as a background, various volatility measures and related statistical theory are developed in the recent literature. This paper introduces the method of empiri...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Robust Inference and Testing of Continuity in Threshold Regression Models

Javier Hidalgo, Jungyoon Lee and Myung Hwan Seo

This paper is concerned with inference in regression models with either a kink or a jump at an unknown threshold, particularly when we do not know whether the kink or jump is the true specification. One of our main resu...Read more...

CASEreport

An Agenda for Housing Plus

Anne Power

This Agenda for Housing Plus pulls together evidence that Housing Plus is fundamental to the way social landlords do business. Housing Plus refers to the wider activities and impact of social landlords on the communities...Read more...

CASEpaper

Inequality and the Capability Approach

Tania Burchardt and Rod Hick

Inequality has acquired a newfound prominence in academic and political debate. While scholars working with the capability approach have succeeded in influencing the nature of debate about the conceptualisation and measu...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

New research evidence on social mobility and educational attainment

John Hills

based on research by Jo Blanden, Claire Crawford, Ellen Greaves, Paul Gregg, Lindsey Macmillan, Abigail McKnight, Luke Sibieta and Anna Vignoles...Read more...

CASEpaper

Citizen's Income: Rights and Wrongs

David Piachaud

A Citizen’s Income, or a Basic Income, is not a new idea but it has been receiving increasing attention. There is confusion about the idea and an attempt is made to distinguish different concepts. Then a full Citizen’s I...Read more...

CASEreport

Community Enterprise: Creating Sustainable Communities Report from a Community Enterprise Think Tank

Alice Belotti

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CASEpaper

Benefit `myths'? The accuracy and inaccuracy of public beliefs about the benefits system

Ben Baumberg Geiger

There is a widespread assumption that increasingly negative public attitudes to the benefits system are due to ‘myths’ held by the British public. However, there is little prior research on whether the public believe the...Read more...

CASEpaper

Pareto and the upper tail of the income distribution in the UK: 1799 to the present

A.B. Atkinson

The Pareto distribution has long been a source of fascination to economists, and the Pareto coefficient is widely used, in theoretical and empirical studies, as a summary of the degree of concentration of top incomes. Th...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Local M-estimation with discontinuous criterion for dependent and limited observations

Myung Hwan Seo and Taisuke Otsu

This paper examines asymptotic properties of local M-estimators under three sets of high-level conditions. These conditions are sufficiently general to cover the minimum volume predictive region, conditional maximum scor...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Likelihood inference on semiparametric models with generated regressors

Yukitoshi Matsushita and Taisuke Otsu

Hahn and Ridder (2013) formulated influence functions of semiparametric three step estimators where generated regressors are computed in the first step. This class of estimators covers several important examples for empi...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Pareto models, top incomes, and recent trends in UK income inequality

Stephen P Jenkins

I determine UK income inequality levels and trends by combining inequality estimates from tax return data (for the ‘rich’) and household survey data (for the ‘non-rich’), taking advantage of the better coverage of top i...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Choice and Competition in Public Service Provision

Timothy Besley and James M. Malcolmson

In spite of a range of policy initiatives in sectors such as education, health care and legal services, whether choice and competition is valuable remains contested territory. This paper studies the impact of choice and ...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Aspirations and the Political Economy of Inequality

Timothy Besley

In standard approaches to the political economy of inequality, the income distribution and the preferences of households are taken as fixed when studying how incomes are determined within and between nations. This paper ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Specification testing for errors-in-variables models

Taisuke Otsu and Luke Taylor

This paper considers specification testing for regression models with errors-in-variables and proposes a test statistic comparing the distance between the parametric and nonparametric fits based on deconvolution techniqu...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Media, Demonstrations, and Public Good Delivery: Evidence from World Bank Projects during Natural Disasters

Nicola Limodio

Media can affect governments and public policy by promoting anti-government demonstrations. Under media pressure, a multitasking government might reallocate effort across tasks, rather than increase the total aggregate, ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Manager Assignment and Project Returns: Evidence from the World Bank

Nicola Limodio

I study the impact of World Bank managers on project success through the value-added method. Manager effects are interpretable as performance indices and are more volatile than country effects. Both correlate positively...Read more...

CASEreport

Changing Rules and Spending Cuts: Helping tenants help themselves and their landlords. Report from two Tenant Think Tanks

Alice Belotti

Read more...

CASEreport

No Place Like An Accessible Home: Quality of life and opportunity for disabled people with accessible housing needs

Tania Burchardt, Bert Provan and Ellie Suh

Habinteg Housing and Papworth Trust commissioned CASE at LSE to report, primarily in relation to working age disabled people, on: 1. The extent of need for housing which has accessible features (for example a stair lift...Read more...

International Studies Paper

Taisho Studies

Haruna Asonuma, Ayako Hotta-Lister, Ian Nish and Naraoka Sochi

Professor Naraoka, Associate Professor of Japanese Political and Diplomatic Historty, University of Kyoto, has been visiting Research Fellow in the International History department, LSE. In his researches into the diari...Read more...

CASEpaper

How do experts think child poverty should be measured in the UK? An analysis of the Coalition Government’s consultation on child poverty measurement 2012-13

Kitty Stewart and Nick Roberts

This paper examines responses to a 2012-13 government consultation on child poverty measurement. It explores what these responses tell us about attitudes towards the child poverty indicators in the Child Poverty Act 2010...Read more...

CASEpaper

Spatial microsimulation estimates of household income distributions in London boroughs, 2001 and 2011

Alex Fenton

Spatial microsimulation (SMS) is a range of techniques for estimating the local distribution of a variable – here, household income – by combining social survey microdata with Census or administrative population totals. ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Gentrification in London: A progress report, 2001-2013

Alex Fenton

This paper investigates changes in the composition and spatial distribution of income poverty in London from 2001 to 2013, and considers them as evidence of gentrification. It is first argued that income poverty measures...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Pulling in the Same Direction? Economic and Social Outcomes in London and the North of England Since the Recession

Polina Obolenskaya, Ruth Lupton and Bert Provan

The Social Policy in a Cold Climate research programme had two major components: first an analysis of the social policies and spending of Labour and Coalition governments from 1997 to 2015, and theirimpacts on poverty, i...Read more...

CASEpaper

Income Poverty, Affluence and Polarisation Viewed From The Median

Rolf Aaberge, A.B. Atkinson and Henrik Sigstad

The present paper brings together different features of the distribution of income – poverty, affluence and dispersion – in a single framework that allows ready comparisons across countries. We believe that such a unifie...Read more...

CASEpaper

Public and Private Welfare Activity in England

Polina Obolenskaya and Tania Burchardt

This paper is the latest in a series of publications documenting the shifting boundaries of private and public welfare activity for the years 1979/80, 1995/96, 1999/00 and 2007/08, and now 2013/14. It records who finance...Read more...

CASEreport

Bilbao City Story

Anne Power

La Fabrique de la Cité, a French foundation sponsored by Vinci, funded LSE Housing and Communities to produce seven updated city reports on Leipzig and six other European cities, following our initial reports in 2007. Th...Read more...

CASEreport

Leipzig City Story

Eileen Herden and Anne Power

La Fabrique de la Cité, a French foundation sponsored by Vinci, funded LSE Housing and Communities to produce seven updated city reports on Leipzig and six other European cities, following our initial reports in 2007. Th...Read more...

CASEreport

Torino City Story

Anne Power

La Fabrique de la Cité, a French foundation sponsored by Vinci, funded LSE Housing and Communities to produce seven updated city reports on Leipzig and six other European cities, following our initial reports in 2007. Th...Read more...

CASEreport

Saint-Étienne City Story

Bert Provan

La Fabrique de la Cité, a French foundation sponsored by Vinci, funded LSE Housing and Communities to produce seven updated city reports on Leipzig and six other European cities, following our initial reports in 2007. Th...Read more...

CASEreport

Lille City Story

Bert Provan

La Fabrique de la Cité, a French foundation sponsored by Vinci, funded LSE Housing and Communities to produce seven updated city reports on Leipzig and six other European cities, following our initial reports in 2007. Th...Read more...

CASEreport

Sheffield City Story

Ben Grubb, Laura Lane and Anne Power

La Fabrique de la Cité, a French foundation sponsored by Vinci, funded LSE Housing and Communities to produce seven updated city reports on Leipzig and six other European cities, following our initial reports in 2007. Th...Read more...

CASEreport

Belfast City Story

Ben Grubb, Laura Lane and Anne Power

La Fabrique de la Cité, a French foundation sponsored by Vinci, funded LSE Housing and Communities to produce seven updated city reports on Leipzig and six other European cities, following our initial reports in 2007. Th...Read more...

CASEreport

Moving on without moving out: the impacts of regeneration on the Rayners Lane Estate

Bert Provan, Alice Belotti and Anne Power

Rayners Lane is an estate in the London Borough of Harrow, comprising 591 homes at the point of transfer from council ownership to Home Group, following a ballot of tenants. Tenants were involved in planning the redevel...Read more...

Book

Social Policy in a Cold Climate: policies and their consequences since the crisis

Edited by Ruth Lupton, Tania Burchardt, John Hills, Kitty Stewart and Polly Vizard

A new book published by Policy Press offers a data-rich, evidence-based analysis of the impact government policies from 2007/08 to 2015 have had on inequality and on the delivery of services such as health, education...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2015

Kitty Stewart and Kate Summers

Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul and Munshi Sulaiman

We study how women’s choices over labor activities in village economies correlate with poverty and whether enabling the poorest women to take on the activities of their richer counterparts can set them on a sustainable...Read more...

CASEreport

Estate Regeneration and Community Impacts: Challenges and lessons for social landlords, developers and local councils

Alice Belotti

Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

A Better Life for All? Democratization and Electrification in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Verena Kroth, Valentino Larcinese and Joachim Wehner

Does democracy affect basic service delivery? If yes, who benefits, and which elements of democracy matter - enfranchisement, the liberalization of political organization, or both? In 1994, 19 million South Africans gai...Read more...

CASEreport

Housing for Victims of Miscarriages of Justice. Report for Commonweal Housing.

Bert Provan

Commonweal Housing commissioned this study to look in more detail at the housing and other problems – including lack of any formal support, faced by victims of “miscarriages of justice”, which arise where a convicted cri...Read more...

CASEreport

Does money in adulthood affect adult outcomes?

Kerris Cooper and Kitty Stewart

There is ample evidence that adults with lower incomes tend to have worse outcomes including worse health, lower life expectancy and lower subjective wellbeing than individuals with more. But is money in adulthood itself...Read more...

CASEreport

Moving the Goal Posts: Poverty And Access To Sport For Young People

Gwenno Edwards, Ben Grubb, Anne Power and Nicola Serle

StreetGames is a charity set up in 2007 to help break down the barriers created by poverty and area disadvantage that prevent young people participating in sport. StreetGames works with local community organisations, spo...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Patents Rights and Innovation by Small and Large Firms

Mark Schankerman

This paper studies the causal impact of patents on subsequent innovation by the patent holder. The analysis is based on court invalidation of patents by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and exploits t...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Modern Family: Female Breadwinners and the Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Norms

Panos Mavrokonstantis

In this paper I investigate the intergenerational transmission of gender norms. The norm I focus on is the traditional view that it is the role of the mother to look after young children and the role of the father to be...Read more...

CASEreport

Findings from the Trafford Hall Energy Plus Think Tank

LSE Housing and Communities

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Theoretical Economics Paper

Time Preferences and Bargaining

Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch

This paper presents an analysis of general time preferences in the canonical Rubinstein (1982) model of bilateral alternating-offers bargaining. I derive a simple sufficient structure for optimal punishments and ther...Read more...

CASEreport

Tenant Futures Programme 2014-15: External evaluation of the National Communities Resource Centre’s Tenant Training Programme for the Financial Year 2014-15

Alice Belotti

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CASEreport

Tenant Futures Grant Programme 2014-15: External evaluation of the National Communities Resource Centre’s Tenant Futures Grant Programme for the Financial Year 2014-2015

Alice Belotti

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SPCC Working Paper

Understanding the improved performance of disadvantaged pupils in London

Jo Blanden, Ellen Greaves, Paul Gregg, Lindsey Macmillan and Luke Sibieta

London is an educational success story, with especially good schooling results for more disadvantaged pupils. This is a dramatic reversal of fortunes. This paper uses a combination of administrative and survey data to ...Read more...

CASEpaper

The changing distribution of individual incomes in the UK before and after the recession

Eleni Karagiannaki and Lucinda Platt

While there has been substantial research on the impacts of the Great Recession on household incomes, there has been less attention paid to the effects on individual income. Using pooled data from the Family Resources Su...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data

Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman

This paper combines income tax returns with macroeconomic household balance sheets to estimate the distribution of wealth in the United States since 1913. We estimate wealth by capitalizing the incomes reported by indivi...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Were we really all in it together? The distributional effects of the 2010-2015 UK Coalition government's tax-benefit policy changes: an end-of-term update

Paola De Agostini, John Hills and Holly Sutherland

This paper examines the distributional impacts of the changes to benefits, tax credits, pensions and direct taxes between the UK Elections in May 2010 and in May 2015. It also looks ahead to the longer-term effects of ch...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Consumption Smoothing and the Welfare Cost of Uncertainty

Yonas Alem and Jonathan Colmer

When agents are unable to smooth consumption and have distorted beliefs about the likelihood of future income realisations, uncertainty about future states of the world has a direct effect on individual welfare. However,...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Patents and Cumulative Innovation: Causal Evidence from the Courts

Alberto Galasso and Mark Schankerman

Cumulative innovation is central to economic growth. Do patent rights facilitate or impede such follow-on innovation? This paper studies the effect of removing patent protection through court invalidation on the subseque...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Social Identity and Redistributive Preferences: A Survey

Joan Costa Font and Frank A Cowell

Social identity is increasingly accepted as a key concept underpin- ning the endogeneity of economic behaviour and preferences. This feature is especially important in explaining redistribution preferences as well as att...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Trends in Individual Income Growth: Measurement Methods and British Evidence

Stephen P Jenkins and Philippe Van Kerm

Assessments of whose income growth is the greatest and whose is the smallest are typically based on comparisons of income changes for income groups (e.g. rich versus poor) or income values (e.g. quantiles). However, inco...Read more...

DARP Paper

Not published

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WSP Discussion Paper

Beveridge, the National Minimum, and its Future in a European Context (Chapter 15 in Incomes and the Welfare State, A B Atkinson (1995). Cambridge University Press); also cchapter 15 in Incomes and the Welfare State: Essays on Britain and Europe

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Targetting of Family Allowance in Hungary

Sarah J Jarvis and John Micklewright

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WSP Discussion Paper

Income Support, Contracting Costs and Social Welfare in Britain

Jean-Yves Duclos

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WSP Discussion Paper

Policy Responses to Changing Housing Markets: Towards a European Housing Policy?

Mark Kleinman

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Distribution of Income in Eastern Europe

A.B. Atkinson and John Micklewright

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Take-up of State Benefits: An Application to Supplementary Benefits in Britain Using the FES

Jean-Yves Duclos

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WSP Discussion Paper

Income Distribution and Redistribution across the Lifecycle: Evidence from Australia

Ann Harding

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WSP Discussion Paper

Progressivity, Redistribution and Equity, with Application to 1985 Britain

Jean-Yves Duclos

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Distribution of Welfare Benefits In Kind

Maria Evandrou, Jane Falkingham, John Hills and Julian Le Grand

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WSP Discussion Paper

Income Support for the Unemployed in Hungary

John Micklewright

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Social Safety Net

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

From Right-to-Buy to Rent-to-Mortgage: Privatisation of Council Housing Since 1979

John Hills

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WSP Discussion Paper

A Cohort Analysis of Chronic Morbidity and Unemployment in the General Household Survey

David Winter

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WSP Discussion Paper

Regional Inequalities in Mortality

Raymond Illsley, Julian Le Grand and Christine Mullings

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WSP Discussion Paper

Dynamic Microsimulation Models: Problems andProspects

Ann Harding

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WSP Discussion Paper

How Much Do We Care? A Comment on the Government's Community Care Proposals (Social Policy and Administration, 24:2, 93-103, Aug 1990)

Maria Evandrou, Jane Falkingham and Howard Glennerster

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WSP Discussion Paper

Equity and the Distribution of National HealthService Resources (Journal of Health Economics, 10, 1-19, June 1991)

Owen O'Donnell and Carol Propper

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WSP Discussion Paper

Distributional Effects of Housing Subsidies in the United Kingdom. (Revised version in Journal of Public Economics, 44:3, 1991)

John Hills

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WSP Discussion Paper

Administration, Compliance and Governability

Patrick Troy

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WSP Discussion Paper

How Far is the Poll Tax a 'Community Charge'? The Implications of Service Usage Evidence (Policy and Politics, 17:3, 187-205, 1989)

Glen Bramley, Julian Le Grand and William Low

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WSP Discussion Paper

Shifting Subsidy from Bricks and Mortar to People: Experiences in Britain and West Germany (Housing Studies, 5:3, 1990, pp.147-167)

John Hills, Franz Hubert, Horst Tomann and Christine Whitehead

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WSP Discussion Paper

Working for Patients? The Right Approach? (Social Policy and Administration, 23:2, Aug 1989)

Nicholas Barr, Howard Glennerster and Julian Le Grand

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WSP Discussion Paper

A New Era for Social Policy: A New Enlightenment or a New Leviathan? (Journal of Social Policy, 20:3, 389-414, July 1991)

Howard Glennerster, Anne Power and Tony Travers

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WSP Discussion Paper

Social Security in Developed Countries: Are There Lessons for Developing Countries? (Ch3 in Social Security in Developing Countries, E Ahmad, J Drèze, J Hills, A Sen (eds) (1991), Oxford University Press)

A.B. Atkinson and John Hills

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WSP Discussion Paper

Income Maintenance for the Unemployed in Britain and the Response to High Unemployment (Ethics, 100, 569-585, 1990; also chapter 9 in Incomes and the Welfare State: Essays on Britain and Europe, by A.B. Atkinson, (Cambridge Univ. Press,1995)

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

Equity versus Efficiency: The Elusive Trade-off (Ethics, 100, 554-568, 1990)

Julian Le Grand

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WSP Discussion Paper

Fifty Years On: The Income and Household Composition of the Elderly in Britain (Ch.12 in Welfare and the Ageing Experience, B Bytheway and J Johnson (eds.) (1990), Avebury)

Jane Falkingham and Chris Gordon

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Mirage of Private Unemployment Insurance

Nicholas Barr

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WSP Discussion Paper

Twenty-First Century Housing Subsidies:Durable Rent-Fixing and Subsidy Arrangementsfor Social Housing. (Revised and expanded versions of much of this paper are to be found in Unravelling Housing Finance (see above)

John Hills

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WSP Discussion Paper

Enterprise Welfare in Japan

Rachel Hall

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WSP Discussion Paper

Student Grants and Student Poverty

Nicholas Barr and William Low

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WSP Discussion Paper

Council Housing: Conflict, Change and Decision-Making

Anne Power

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WSP Discussion Paper

Non-Wage Labour Costs: Their Rationales and the Economic Effects

Toshiaki Tachibanaki

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WSP Discussion Paper

Social Justice and the Redistributive Effect ofSocial Expenditure in Poland

Wlodek Okrasa

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Use of Domiciliary Services by the Elderly: A Survey

Maria Evandrou

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WSP Discussion Paper

Measurement of Inequality in Health (Economics and Health, A Williams (ed) (1987), Macmillan)

Raymond Illsley and Julian Le Grand

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WSP Discussion Paper

Service Credits: A New Currency for the Welfare State

Edgar Cahn

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Scandinavian Welfare State: Anatomy, Logic and Some Problems (in The Economic Development of Denmark and Norway since 1870, K G Persson (ed) (1993), Edward Elgar)

Gunnar Persson

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WSP Discussion Paper

On Researching the Distributional Consequences of Public Policies (Ch. 2 in Not Only the Poor: the Middle Classes and the Welfare State, R Goodin and J Le Grand (eds) (1987), Unwin Hyman)

Julian Le Grand

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WSP Discussion Paper

Research Directions on the Future of the Welfare State: a View from Social Administration

Howard Glennerster

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WSP Discussion Paper

Growing Old in the 21st Century: Lessons from Four Cohorts in Britain 1974-93

Maria Evandrou and Jane Falkingham

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WSP Discussion Paper

Giving Credit Where it's Due? The Success of Family Credit Reassessed

Martin Evans

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WSP Discussion Paper

Chunnel Vision: Poverty, Social Exclusion and The Debate on Social Welfare in France and Britain

Martin Evans, Serge Paugam and Joseph Prélis

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Problem of Lone Mother Families in Twentieth Century Britain

Jane Lewis

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WSP Discussion Paper

Transition to Parenthood: Young Mothers, Young Fathers - Associated factors and later life experiences. (Version published as Becoming a Parent: A Longitudinal Study of Associated Factors, in British Journal of Sociology, 48(3), 1997)

Kathleen E Kiernan

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WSP Discussion Paper

Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese Social Welfare in Comparative Perspective

Roger Goodman and Ito Peng

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WSP Discussion Paper

The incomes of the non-household population and the effect of their exclusion from national income profiles

Martin Evans

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Effects of Differences in Housing and Health Care Systems on International Comparions of Income Distribution

Jane Falkingham, Karen Gardiner, John Hills, Valérie Lechêne and Holly Sutherland

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Welfare State and Economic Performance. Now published in National Tax Journal 48(2), (1995), pp.171-198

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

Evaluating the Pin Money Hypothesis: The relationship between women's labour market activity, family income and poverty in Britain

Susan Harkness, Stephen Machin and Jane Waldfogel

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WSP Discussion Paper

Seeking to Explain the Distribution of Income. Now published in New Inequalities: The changing distribution of income and wealth in the UK, J Hills (ed.) (1996), Cambridge University Press

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

Designed for the Poor - Poorer by Design? The Effects of the 1986 Social Security Acton Family Incomes

Martin Evans, David Piachaud and Holly Sutherland

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WSP Discussion Paper

State Pensions for Today and Tomorrow. (Published by the Age Concern Institute of Gerontology, 1994; also chapter 16 in Incomes and the Welfare State: Essays on Britain and Europe, by A.B. Atkinson (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Decline of the Male Breadwinner: Changing Shares of Husbands' and Wives' Earnings in Family Income

Stephen Machin and Jane Waldfogel

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Development of Quasi-markets in Welfare Provision. Now published in International Journal of Health Services 25 (2), 1995

Howard Glennerster and Julian Le Grand

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WSP Discussion Paper

Not Granted? An Assessment of the Change from Single Payments to the Social Fund

Martin Evans

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WSP Discussion Paper

A Survey of Income Inequality Over the Last Twenty Years: How Does the UK Compare?

Karen Gardiner

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WSP Discussion Paper

On Targeting Social Security: Theory and Western Experience with Family Benefits (in Public Spending and the Poor, D van de Walle and K Nead (eds.) (1996), Johns Hopkins University Press)

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Institution of an Official Poverty Line and Economic Policy

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

Capabilities, Exclusion, and the Supply of Goods (in Choice, Welfare and Development, K Basu, P Pattanaik and K Suzumura (eds.) (1995), Clarendon Press)

A.B. Atkinson

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WSP Discussion Paper

Investing in Skills: Responses to Learning should Pay and Paying for Learning

Robert J Bennett

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WSP Discussion Paper

The Low Income Population in Spain and a Comparison with France and the UK: Evidence from the Household Expenditure Surveys

Magda Mercader-Prats

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WSP Discussion Paper

Paying for Learning

Nicholas Barr and Jane Falkingham

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WSP Discussion Paper

Women Working for Less: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Family Gap. (Version to be published in Oxford Economic Papers, vol.47 (October 1995).

Jane Waldfogel

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WSP Discussion Paper

Investigating Welfare: Final Report of the ESRC Welfare Research Programme

Howard Glennerster, John Hills and Julian Le Grand

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WSP Discussion Paper

Who Benefits from Local Services? Comparative Evidence from Different Local Authorities

Glen Bramley and Gavin Smart

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WSP Discussion Paper

A Unified Funded Pension Scheme (UFPS) for Britain. (Revised version in The Dynamic of Welfare: the welfare state and the life cycle, J Falkingham and J Hills (eds.) (1995) Harvester-Wheatsheaf).

Jane Falkingham and Paul Johnson

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WSP Discussion Paper

Informal Carers and the Labour Market inBritain

Maria Evandrou and David Winter

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Theoretical Economics Paper

Inventories as an Information-Gathering Device

Steve Alpern and Dennis J. Snower

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DARP Paper

(not published)

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SPCC Working Paper

When and Why do Initially High Attaining Poor Children Fall Behind?

Claire Crawford, Lindsey Macmillan and Anna Vignoles

The role of education as a potential driver of social mobility has been well established in both the theoretical (Blau and Duncan, 1967; Becker and Tomes, 1986) and empirical literature (Atkinson, 1980; Atkinson and Jenk...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric instrumental regression with errors in variables

Karun Adusumilli and Taisuke Otsu

This paper considers nonparametric instrumental variable regression when the endogenous variable is contaminated with classical measurement error. Existing methods are inconsistent in the presence of measurement error. W...Read more...

CASEreport

Older people's experiences of dignity and nutrition during hospital stays: Secondary data analysis using the Adult Inpatient Survey

Tania Burchardt and Polly Vizard

The report uses the Adult Inpatient Survey 2012 to build up an in-depth quantitative evidence base on older people's experiences of dignity and nutrition during hospital stays in England. We find that just under one-quar...Read more...

CASEbrief

Older people's experiences of dignity and nutrition during hospital stays: Secondary data analysis using the Adult Inpatient Survey

Tania Burchardt and Polly Vizard

The report uses the Adult Inpatient Survey 2012 to build up an in-depth quantitative evidence base on older people's experiences of dignity and nutrition during hospital stays in England. The survey covers adults aged 16...Read more...

CASEpaper

A fresh look at an old question: is pro-poor targeting of cash transfers more effective than universal systems at reducing inequality and poverty?

Abigail McKnight

This paper presents findings on the changing effectiveness of cash transfers and income taxes on inequality and poverty reduction in four EU countries - the UK, Italy, Sweden and France. We use long time series (spanning...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Decentralized Bargaining: Efficiency and the Core

Matt Elliott and Francesco Nava

This paper studies market clearing in matching markets. Bargaining in such markets occurs in the context of alternative possible matches that provide endogenous outside options. We ask when will such markets clear effici...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

The Optimal Timing of Unemployment Benefits: Theory and Evidence from Sweden

Jonas Kolsrud, Camille Landais, Peter Nilsson and Johannes Spinnewijn

This paper provides a simple, yet general framework to analyze the optimal time profile of benefits during the unemployment spell. We derive simple sufficient-statistics formulae capturing the insurance value and incenti...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

European Identity and Redistributive Preferences

Joan Costa-Font and Frank A Cowell

How important is spatial identity in shifting preferences for redistribution? This paper takes advantage of within-country variability in the adoption of a single currency as an instrument to examine the impact of the re...Read more...

Special or Commissioned Report

Research Report for the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission:

Downward mobility, opportunity hoarding and the ‘glass floor’

Abigail McKnight

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Development Discussion Paper

Nation-Building Through Compulsory Schooling During the Age of Mass Migration

Oriana Bandiera, Myra Mohnen, Imran Rasul and Martina Viarengo

By the mid-19th century, America was the best educated nation on Earth: significant financial investments in education were being undertaken and the majority of children voluntarily attended public schools. So why did US...Read more...

CASEpaper

Mothers, parenting and the impact of separation

Lucinda Platt, Tina Haux and Rachel Rosenberg

This paper investigates the impact of separation on mothers’ perception of their competence as parents. Using the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), a largescale nationally representative cohort study of children born in the...Read more...

CASEpaper

Parenting and post-separation contact: what are the links?

Tina Haux, Lucinda Platt and Rachel Rosenberg

High rates of parental separation and the extent to which non-resident fathers lose contact with their child have led to concerns about the involvement of fathers in their children’s lives. In this paper, we draw on a na...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Testing for Breaks in Regression Models with Dependent Data

Violetta Dalla and Javier Hidalgo

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Development Discussion Paper

How Does Collective Reputation Affect Hiring? Selection and Sorting in an Online Labour Market

Guo Xu

How does collective reputation affect hiring and selection into jobs? Using detailed hiring data from a global online labour market, where the country of residence is the salient group characteristic, we document a mecha...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Inference and Testing Breaks in Large Dynamic Panels with Strong Cross Sectional Dependence

Javier Hidalgo and Marcia M Schafgans

This paper is concerned with various issues related to inference in large dynamic panel data models (where both n and T increase without bound) in the presence of, possibly, strong cross-sectional dependence. Our first a...Read more...

CASEpaper

Monitoring the evolution of income poverty and real incomes over time

A.B. Atkinson, Anne-Catherine Guio and Eric Marlier

This paper brings together two approaches to the monitoring of household living standards: the macro-economic (national accounts) analysis of aggregates and the social indicators based on household microdata (European Un...Read more...

CASEpaper

The Coalition's Record on Employment: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Abigail McKnight

The evaluation of the Coalition’s employment policy shows that although the labour market was remarkably resilient over the recession in terms of employment rates, this was largely driven by falling real wages and increa...Read more...

CASEreport

Is Welfare Reform Working? Impacts on working age tenants

Eileen Herden, Anne Power and Bert Provan

This report presents evidence on whether the aim of moving people who are dependent on benefits into work has been achieved, and considers three important questions: Are welfare reforms encouraging tenants into work or t...Read more...

SPCC Research Report

The Changing Anatomy of Economic Inequality in London (2007-2013)

Polly Vizard, Polina Obolenskaya, Eleni Karagiannaki, Jack Cunliffe, Stephanie Thomson, Chris Grollman and Ruth Lupton

In this report we examine changing patterns of inequality in London over the period 2007-2013. We examine how the distribution of key economic outcomes - including income and wealth, employment and unemployment, earnings...Read more...

SPCC Research Report

Falling Behind, Getting Ahead: The Changing Structure of Inequality in the UK, 2007-2013

John Hills, Jack Cunliffe, Polina Obolenskaya and Eleni Karagiannaki

This report looks in detail at inequality within the UK, 2007-2013, which groups have gained and lost - comparing men and women, and housing tenure, region, ethnicity, and disability as well as age group. Detailed examin...Read more...

CASEreport

Energy Plus: Energy Efficiency in Social Housing

Anne Marie Brady and Bert Provan

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CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2014

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Econometrics Paper

Pooling data across markets in dynamic Markov games

Taisuke Otsu, Martin Pesendorfer and Yuya Takahashi

This paper proposes several statistical tests for finite state Markov games to examine the null hypothesis that data from distinct markets can be pooled. We formulate tests of (i) the conditional choice and state transit...Read more...

CASEreport

Bridging the Gap: The Haringey Support Fund

Laura Lane, Bert Provan, Alice Belotti and Anne Power

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CASEreport

The Impact of Welfare Reform on Social Housing Tenants: Findings from two Think Tanks

LSE Housing and Communities

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CASEpaper

The income distribution in the UK: A picture of advantage and disadvantage

Stephen P Jenkins

This paper describes the UK income distribution and how it has evolved over the last 50 years. It also includes some comparisons with the income distributions of other rich countries. Multiple perspectives on the distrib...Read more...

CASEpaper

Piketty in the long run

Frank A Cowell

I examine the idea of 'the long run' in Piketty (2014) and related works. In contrast to simplistic interpretations of long-run models of income- and wealth-distribution Piketty (2014) draws on a rich economic analysis t...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Projection Equilibrium: Definition and Applications to Social Investment and Persuasion

Kristóf Madarász

People exaggerate the extent to which their private information is shared with others. This paper introduces this phenomenon portably into Bayesian games where people wrongly think that if they can condition their strate...Read more...

CASEreport

High Rise Hope Revisited: The social implications of upgrading large estates

Laura Lane, Anne Power and Bert Provan

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SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Schools: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Ruth Lupton and Stephanie Thomson

In May 2010, David Cameron and Nick Clegg committed the Coalition to sweeping school reforms, promising “a breaking open of the state monopoly”. They also pledged to protect school spending and give extra money to the ed...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Area Regeneration and Neighbourhood Renewal: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Ruth Lupton and Amanda Fitzgerald

In the decade to 2010, substantial progess had been made to improve living conditions, and outcomes in the poorest neighbourhoods. But large gaps remained. This paper looks at how the Coalition tackled this issue, and wh...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Housing: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Rebecca Tunstall

Coalition Ministers were highly critical of the state of UK housing when they took power. How far were they able to improve a system they had described as 'dysfunctional'?...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Adult Social Care: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Tania Burchardt, Polina Obolenskaya and Polly Vizard

Approaching 1.3 million older people and younger disabled and mentally ill adults use social care services in England, and 3.2 million are cared for informally, by their families and friends. How did the Coalition respon...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Health: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Polly Vizard and Polina Obolenskaya

David Cameron promised in 2010 to 'cut the deficit, not the NHS'. But how have the Coalition's policies - including health reforms which are widely viewed as going beyond election commitments - impacted on health?...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Employment: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Abigail McKnight

The Coalition came to power amid a continuing economic crisis and rising unemployment. How successfully did its active labour market policies contribute to employment growth?...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Further Education, Skills and Access to Higher Education: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Ruth Lupton, Lorna Unwin and Stephanie Thomson

The Coalition inherited some long-term problems in the provision of further education (FE) and skills training as well unresolved challenges about the funding of higher education (HE). What did it do and with what result...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Under Fives 2010-2015

Kitty Stewart

The Government's strategy for improving social mobility emphasised the importance of early childhood. Against a backdrop of tightening austerity, what happened in practice to children's services, family incomes and early...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

The Coalition's Record on Cash Transfers, Poverty and Inequality 2010-2015

John Hills

Presenting his 2010 spending review, George Osborne, the Chancellor, insisted that 'those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden'. How did the Coalition's benefit and direct tax policies affect the d...Read more...

SPCC Research Report

The Coalition's Social Policy Record: Policy Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015

Ruth Lupton, Tania Burchardt, Amanda Fitzgerald, John Hills, Abigail McKnight, Polina Obolenskaya, Kitty Stewart, Stephanie Thomson, Rebecca Tunstall and Polly Vizard

This paper summarises nine detailed reports assessing the social policies of the UK Coalition government elected in 2010. What did the Coalition set out to achieve? How much was spent and saved? What policies were enacte...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric likelihood for volatility under high frequency data

Lorenzo Camponovo, Yukitoshi Matsushita and Taisuke Otsu

We propose a nonparametric likelihood inference method for the integrated volatility under high frequency financial data. The nonparametric likelihood statistic, which contains the conventional statistics such as empiric...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Bootstrap inference of matching estimators for average treatment effects

Taisuke Otsu and Yoshiyasu Rai

Abadie and Imbens (2008) showed that the standard naive bootstrap is inconsistent to estimate the distribution of the matching estimator for treatment effects with a fixed number of matches. This article proposes an asym...Read more...

CASEpaper

Beyond Radicalism and Resignation: The Competing Logics for Public Participation in Policy Decisions

Rikki Dean

From the World Bank to the Occupy Movement, support for greater citizen participation in social policy decisions has become ubiquitous. This paper argues that existing typologies of participation are problematic in that ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Does early centre-based care have an impact on child cognitive and socio-emotional development? Evidence from Chile

Marigen Narea

Worldwide, non-maternal child care during the first years of life has gradually become more prevalent. However, there is little evidence for Chile about the benefit of early attendance at centre-based care—especially uni...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

A Quantitative Analysis of the Retail Market for Illicit Drugs

Manolis Galenianos and Alessandro Gavazza

We develop a theoretical framework to study illicit drugs markets and we estimate it using data on purchases of crack cocaine. Buyers are searching for high-quality drugs, but they determine drugs’ quality (i.e., their p...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Robust estimation of moment condition models with weakly dependent data

Kirill Evdokimov, Yuichi Kitamura and Taisuke Otsu

This paper considers robust estimation of moment condition models with time series data. Researchers frequently use moment condition models in dynamic econometric analysis. These models are particularly useful when one w...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Regularization for Spatial Panel Time Series Using the Adaptive LASSO

Clifford Lam and Pedro Souza

This paper proposes a model for estimating the underlying cross-sectional dependence structure of a large panel of time series. Technical difficulties meant such a structure is usually assumed before further analysis. We...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Were we really all in it together? The distributional effects of the UK Coalition government's tax-benefit policy changes

Paola De Agostini, John Hills and Holly Sutherland

This paper examines the distributional impacts of the changes to benefits, tax credits, pensions and direct (but not indirect) taxes between the systems in place in May 2010 at the time of the Election and in 2014/15. It...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Hard times, new directions? The impact of local government spending cuts on three deprived neighbourhoods. Final report.

Amanda Fitzgerald, Ruth Lupton and Anne Marie Brady

In the context of what was described as the worst financial settlement in living memory for local government, we set out in this study to establish how residents living in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods of Lond...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Dynamic Panels with Threshold Effect and Endogeneity

Myung Hwan Seo and Yongcheol Shin

This paper addresses an important and challenging issue as how best to model nonlinear asymmetric dynamics and cross-sectional heterogeneity, simultaneously, in the dynamic threshold panel data framework, in which both t...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

A Cusum Test of Common Trends in Large Heterogeneous Panels

Javier Hidalgo and Jungyoon Lee

This paper examines a nonparametric CUSUM-type test for common trends in large panel data sets with individual fixed effects. We consider, as in Zhang, Su and Phillips (2012), a partial linear regression model with unkno...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Estimation of Nonseparable Models with Censored Dependent Variables and Endogenous Regressors.

Taisuke Otsu and Luke Taylor

In this paper we develop a nonparametric estimator for the local average response of a censored dependent variable to endogenous regressors in a nonseparable model where the unobservable error term is not restricted to b...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

When Commitment Fails - Evidence from a Regular Saver Product in the Philippines

Anett John (née Hofmann)

Commitment products are widely regarded as a remedy for self-control problems. However, imperfect knowledge about one's preferences implies that individuals may fail to anticipate their behaviour under commitment, and co...Read more...

CASEpaper

Climate Change and Sustainable Welfare: An Argument for the Centrality of Human Needs

Ian Gough

Since climate change threatens human wellbeing across the globe and into the future, we require a concept of wellbeing that encompasses an equivalent ambit. This paper argues that only a concept of human need can do the ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Losing Prosociality in the Quest for Talent? Sorting, Selection, and Productivity in the Delivery of Public Services

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott Lee

We embed a field experiment in a nationwide recruitment drive for nurses in Zambia to test whether career benefits attract talent at the expense of prosocial motivation. We randomize the offer of career benefits at the r...Read more...

CASEreport

Tenant Futures: External evaluation of the National Communities Resource Centre Tenant Training Programme

Eileen Herden

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CASEreport

Facing Debt: Economic Resilience in Newham

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Economics of Industry Paper

Multiproduct Firms, Income Distribution, and Trade

Marcia M Schafgans and Joachim Stibora

We develop a general equilibrium model of multiproduct fi…rms with quality differentiated goods. Households are characterized by an heterogeneous taste for the differentiated good and their income level. The use of non-h...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Empirical Likelihood for Random Sets

Karun Adusumilli and Taisuke Otsu

We extend the method of empirical likelihood to cover hypotheses involving the Aumann expectation of random sets. By exploiting the properties of random sets, we convert the testing problem into one involving a continuum...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Family Welfare Cultures

Gordon B. Dahl, Magne Mogstad and Andreas Ravndal Kostol

Strong intergenerational correlations in various types of welfare use have fuelled a long- standing debate over whether welfare receipt in one generation causes welfare participation in the next generation. Some claim a ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Can Workfare Programs Moderate Violence? Evidence from India

Thiemo Fetzer

Governments in conflict torn states scramble for effective policies to persistently reduce levels of violence. This paper provides evidence that a workfare program that functions as a social insurance, providing employme...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

Hard Times, New Directions? The Impact of Local Government Spending Cuts in London (Interim Report Summary)

Amanda Fitzgerald and Ruth Lupton

Key Points: London local government has taken a 33 per cent real terms cut in service funding from central government between 2009/10 and 2013/14. Councils have been making strenuous efforts to make large savings without...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2013

he CASE annual report containing interesting articles and summaries of research from the previous year....Read more...

CASEpaper

Disabled People's Financial Histories: Uncovering the disability wealth-penalty

Abigail McKnight

It is well established that on average disabled people and the households in which they live face greater financial disadvantage in terms of income than their counterparts. What is less well understood is how they fare i...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Your Loss Is My Gain: A Recruitment Experiment With Framed Incentives

Jonathan de Quidt

Empirically, labor contracts that financially penalize failure induce higher effort provision than economically identical contracts presented as paying a bonus for success, an effect attributed to loss aversion. This is ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Just a Few Cents Each Day: Can Fixed Regular Deposits Overcome Savings Constraints?

Anett John (née Hofmann)

Empirical evidence suggests that there is a high demand for informal savings mechanisms even though these often feature negative returns - such as deposit collectors, ROSCAs, microloans, and informal borrowing. This pape...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

Education, Equity and Social Mobility: A Summary of Three Research Papers

David Utting

This paper summarises key themes and research findings from papers presented at an event hosted by CASE on 23rd January 2014: - Blanden, J. & Macmillan, L. (2014) Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindran...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindrance?

Jo Blanden and Lindsey Macmillan

Evidence on intergenerational income mobility in the UK is dated. This paper seeks to update our knowledge by introducing new estimates of mobility for later measures of earnings in the 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts. Given...Read more...

CASEreport

Work and Welfare Reform: Impacts in the South West

Anne Power, Bert Provan and Eileen Herden

In 2013, members of HAILO commissioned the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) to conduct an 18 month longitudinal study looking at how the government’s welfare reform programme will influence tenants’...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Women’s Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa

Oriana Bandiera, Niklas Buehren, Robin Burgess, Markus Goldstein, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul and Munshi Sulaiman

Women in developing countries are disempowered relative to their contemporaries in developed countries. High youth unemployment and early marriage and childbearing interact to limit human capital investment and enforce d...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Reason-Based Rationalization

Franz Dietrich and Christian List

“Reason-based rationalizations” explain an agent's choices by specifying which properties of the options or choice context he/she cares about (the “motivationally salient properties”) and how he/she cares about these pro...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

The great reversal in the demand for skill and cognitive tasks

Paul Beadry, Paul Beaudry, David A. Green and Ben Sand

What explains the current low rate of employment in the US? While there has been substantial debate over this question in recent years, we believe that considerable added insight can be derived by focusing on changes in ...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Female Labour Supply, Human Capital and Welfare Reform

Richard Blundell, Monica Costa Dias, Costas Meghir and Jonathan Shaw

We consider the impact of tax credits and income support programs on female education choice, employment,hours and human capital accumulation over the life-cycle. We analyze both the short run incentive e?ects and the lo...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Management of Bureaucrats and Public Service Delivery: Evidence from the Nigerian Civil Service

Imran Rasul and Daniel Rogger

We study how the management practices that bureaucrats operate under, correlate to the quantity and quality of public services delivered. We do so in a developing country context, exploiting data from the Nigerian Civil ...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

A Theory of Income Taxation under Multidimensional Skill Heterogeneity

Casey Rothschild and Florian Scheuer

We develop a unifying framework for optimal income taxation in multi-sector economies with general patterns of externalities. Agents in this model are characterized by an N-dimensional skill vector corresponding to intri...Read more...

CASEpaper

Richard Titmuss: Forty years on

Howard Glennerster

Richard Titmuss was one of the world’s leading public analysts and philosophers. He was highly influential in shaping the post-war welfare state and created the subject we now call social policy. What would he make of th...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Empirical Likelihood for Regression Discontinuity Design

Taisuke Otsu, Ke-Li Xu and Yukitoshi Matsushita

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CASEpaper

Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindrance?

Jo Blanden and Lindsey Macmillan

Evidence on intergenerational income mobility in the UK is dated. This paper seeks to update our knowledge by introducing new estimates of mobility for later measures of earnings in the 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts. Given...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Robustness of bootstrap in instrumental variable regression

Lorenzo Camponovo and Taisuke Otsu

This paper studies robustness of bootstrap inference methods for instrumental variable (IV)regression models. We consider test statistics for parameter hypotheses based on the IV estimatorand generalized method of trimme...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Asymptotics for maximum score method under general conditions

Myung Hwan Seo and Taisuke Otsu

Abstract. Since Manski's (1975) seminal work, the maximum score method for discrete choice models has been applied to various econometric problems. Kim and Pollard (1990) established the cube root asymptotics for the max...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Hard Times, New Directions? The Impact of Local Government Spending Cuts in London (Interim Report)

Amanda Fitzgerald, Ruth Lupton, Ronan Smyth and Polly Vizard

Key Points: London local government has taken a 33 per cent real terms cut in service funding from central government between 2009/10 and 2013/14. Councils have been making strenuous efforts to make large savings without...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Managing the Family Firm: Evidence from CEOs at Work

Oriana Bandiera, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun

CEOs affect the performance of the firms they manage, and family CEOs seem to weaken it. Yet little is known about what top executives actually do, and whether it differs by firm ownership. We study CEOs in the Indian ma...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The Perverse Consequences of Policy Restrictions in the Presence of Asymmetric Information

Rafael Hortala-Vallve, Valentino Larcinese and Stephanie Rickard

Institutions can limit governments' policy options. Such restrictions are usually commended as solutions to time inconsistency problems or coordination failures. However, policy constraints can have important drawbacks a...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Series Estimation under Cross-sectional Dependence

Jungyoon Lee and Peter M Robinson

An asymptotic theory is developed for nonparametric and semiparametric series estimation under general cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. A uniform rate of consistency, asymptotic normality, and sufficient con...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Panel Nonparametric Regression with Fixed Effects

Jungyoon Lee and Peter M Robinson

Nonparametric regression is developed for data with both a temporal and a cross-sectional dimension. The model includes additive, unknown, individual-specifi…c components and allows also for cross-sectional and temporal ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Non-Nested Testing of Spatial Correlation

Miguel A. Delgado and Peter M Robinson

We develop non-nested tests in a general spatial, spatio-temporal or panel data context. The spatial aspect can be interpreted quite generally, in either a geographical sense, or employing notions of economic distance, o...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Efficient Inference on Fractionally Integrated Panel Data Models with Fixed Effects

Peter M Robinson and Carlos Velasco

A dynamic panel data model is considered that contains possibly stochastic individual components and a common fractional stochastic time trend. We propose four different ways of coping with the individual effects so as t...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Improved Lagrange Multiplier Tests in Spatial Autoregressions

Peter M Robinson and Francesca Rossi

For testing lack of correlation against spatial autoregressive alternatives, Lagrange multiplier tests enjoy their usual computational advantages, but the (x squared) first-order asymptotic approximation to critical valu...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Improved Tests for Spatial Correlation

Peter M Robinson and Francesca Rossi

We consider testing the null hypothesis of no spatial autocorrelation against the alternative of first order spatial autoregression. A Wald test statistic has good first order asymptotic properties, but these may not be ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Wealth and Inheritance in Britain from 1896 to the Present

A.B. Atkinson

There has been a large rise in the UK ratio of personal wealth to national income. Personal wealth has grown since the 1970s about twice as fast in real terms as national income. Has this rise in the wealth-income ratio ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Labour's Record on Neighbourhood Renewal in England: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 1997-2010

Ruth Lupton, Alex Fenton and Amanda Fitzgerald

When he came to power in 1997, Tony Blair reacted to widening disparities between poorer and richer neighbourhoods by declaring that no one in future decades should be seriously disadvantaged by where they lived. This pa...Read more...

CASEpaper

Labour's Record on the Under Fives: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 1997-2010

Kitty Stewart

When Labour came to power in 1997 it made commitments to reduce poverty and improve children’s health, education and wider life chances. Early childhood was considered central to the strategy, and considerable resources ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Profit with Purpose? A Theory of Social Enterprise with Experimental Evidence

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

When social benefits cannot be measured, a hybrid organization which selects managers based on motivation can be used to balance profi…ts with a social purpose. This paper develops a model of social enterprise based on s...Read more...

CASEreport

Does money affect children's outcomes?

Kerris Cooper and Kitty Stewart

Children in low-income households do less well than their better-off peers on many outcomes in life, such as education or health, simply because they are poorer. While a parent's level of education, attitude towards brin...Read more...

CASEreport

Tenant Futures: External Evaluation of the National Communities Resource Centre's Tenant Training Programme

Eileen Herden

This is the final evaluation of the Tenant Futures training programme, developed and run by the National Communities Resource Centre at Trafford Hall and funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government. The ...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Peer Effects in Endogenous Networks

Timo Hiller and Timo Hiller

This paper presents a simple model of strategic network formation with local complementarities in effort levels and positive local externalities for a general class of payoff functions. Results are obtained for one-sided...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Extremum Sieve Estimation in k-out-of-n Systems

Tatiana Komarova

The paper considers nonparametric estimation of absolutely continuous distribution functions of lifetimes of non-identical components in k-out-of-n systems from the observed “autopsy” data. In economics,ascending “button...Read more...

CASEreport

Developing an indicator-based framework for monitoring older people's human rights: key findings for Peru, Mozambique and Kyrgyzstan

Polly Vizard

This project was commissioned by HelpAge International as a basis for broader efforts to develop an indicator-based system for monitoring older people’s human rights in different countries across the world. The project h...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Small-area measures of income poverty

Alex Fenton

This paper considers techniques for measuring the prevalence of income poverty within small areas, or “neighbourhoods”, in Britain. The ultimate purpose is applying such statistics to investigating how the micro-spatial ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Awards Unbundled: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott Lee

Organizations often use awards to incentivize performance. We design a field experiment to unbundle the mechanisms through which awards may affect behavior: by facilitating social comparison and by conferring recognition...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya

Robin Burgess, Remi Jedwab, Edward Miguel, Ameet Morjaria and Gerard Padro i Miquel

Ethnic favoritism is seen as antithetical to development. This paper provides credible quantifi…cation of the extent of ethnic favoritism using data on road building in Kenyan districts across the 1963-2011 period. Guide...Read more...

CASEpaper

Labour's Record on Cash Transfers, Poverty, Inequality and the Lifecycle 1997 - 2010

John Hills

Cash transfers (benefits and tax credits) are crucial to the way that inequalities develop over time. This paper looks at how Labour’s aims, policies and achievements on poverty and inequality related to its reforms of a...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Group Lending Without Joint Liability

Thiemo Fetzer, Maitreesh Ghatak and Jonathan de Quidt

This paper contrasts individual liability lending with and without groups to joint liability lending. By doing so, we shed light on an apparent shift away from joint liability lending towards individual liability lending...Read more...

CASEreport

Divided City? The value of mixed communities in expensive neighbourhoods

Katie Bates, Laura Lane, Anne Power and Nicola Serle

Headlines: [1] Octavia Housing, a long-established social landlord in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster, provides low cost rented homes to low-income local residents in high-cost areas. In doing so it helps to overc...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Testing for equality of an increasing number of spectral density functions

Javier Hidalgo, Pedro Souza and Pedro Souza

Nowadays it is very frequent that a practitioner faces the problem of modelling large data sets. Relevant examples include spatio-temporal or panel data models with large N and T. In these cases deciding a particular dyn...Read more...

SPCC Research Report

Prosperity, Poverty and Inequality in London 2000/01-2010/11

Ruth Lupton, Polly Vizard, Amanda Fitzgerald, Alex Fenton, Ludovica Gambaro and Jack Cunliffe

This report looks at changes in poverty and inequality in London during the 2000s, with a focus on the impact of recession from 2008. It also considers how a decade has changed the geography of poverty in the Capital....Read more...

SPCC Research Report

Winners and Losers in the Crisis: The Changing Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK 2007 - 2010

John Hills, Jack Cunliffe, Ludovica Gambaro, Polina Obolenskaya and Ruth Lupton

Despite being better qualified than previous generations, people in their twenties were worst hit by the crisis in terms of unemployment, pay and incomes....Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Labour's Record on Neighbourhood Renewal in England: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 1997-2010

Ruth Lupton, Alex Fenton and Amanda Fitzgerald

When he came to power in 1997, Tony Blair reacted to widening disparities between poorer and richer neighbourhoods by declaring that no one in future decades should be seriously disadvantaged by where they lived. What po...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Labour's Record on Cash Transfers, Poverty, Inequality and the Lifecycle 1997 - 2010

John Hills

Cash transfers (benefits and tax credits) are crucial to the way that inequalities develop over time. This paper looks at how Labour’s aims, policies and achievements on poverty and inequality related to its reforms of a...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Labour's Record on the Under Fives: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 1997 - 2010

Kitty Stewart

When Labour came to power in 1997 it made commitments to reduce poverty and improve children’s health, education and wider life chances. How far did it act on these commitments, at what cost, and with what impact?...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Labour's Record on Education: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 1997-2010

Ruth Lupton and Polina Obolenskaya

As we write in 2013, a broad consensus appears to have emerged in English politics about the importance of reducing educational inequalities between richer and poorer pupils, as well as improving educational standards ov...Read more...

SPCC Working Paper

Labour's Record on Health (1997-2010)

Polly Vizard and Polina Obolenskaya

The aim of this research report is to provide an overall evaluation of Labour’s record on health 1997-2010 as an input into the Social Policy in a Cold Climate research programme. The report summarises, brings together a...Read more...

SPCC Research Report

Labour's Social Policy Record: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 1997-2010

Ruth Lupton, John Hills, Kitty Stewart and Polly Vizard

This is the first major report in a wider programme assessing the impact of the recession, government policy reforms and public spending on poverty and inequality in the UK. Later work will assess the Coalition’s social ...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

Low-demand Housing and Unpopular Neighbourhoods Under Labour

Alex Fenton and Ruth Lupton

When the last Labour government took office in 1997, pledging to combat social exclusion, renew neighbourhoods and eliminate ‘no-go’ areas, a critical issue was to address the phenomenon of ‘low-demand’ housing and unpop...Read more...

CASEpaper

Public policy and inequalities of choice and autonomy

Tania Burchardt, Martin Evans and Holly Holder

This article explores the conceptualisation of choice as autonomy using three components – self-reflection, active decision-making, and quality and range of options - and investigates empirical inequalities in autonomy, ...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

Urban Area and Hinterland: Defining Large Cities in England, Scotland and Wales in terms of their constituent neighbourhoods

Alex Fenton

This note describes a method for defining the 'core urban area' and 'hinterland' of large and metropolitan cities in Britain. The definitions are made in terms of small-area ('neighbourhood') geographies used in standard...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

Post-censal household estimates for small areas

Alex Fenton

The Censuses of Population in the constituent countries of the UK provide counts of households at small area level and above every 10 years. All four countries in the UK also produce annual household projections and esti...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2012

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CASEbrief

Wealth distribution, accumulation and policy

Francesca Bastagli, Frank A Cowell, Howard Glennerster, John Hills, Eleni Karagiannaki and Abigail McKnight

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CASEpaper

Small-area measures of income poverty

Alex Fenton

This paper considers techniques for measuring the prevalence of income poverty within small areas, or “neighbourhoods”, in Britain. The ultimate purpose is applying such statistics to investigating how the micro-spatial ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

SPECIFICATION FOR LATTICE PROCESSES

Javier Hidalgo and Myung Hwan Seo

We consider an omnibus test for the correct speci…cation of the dynamics of a sequence fx (t)gt2Zd in a lattice. As it happens with causal models and d = 1, its asymptotic distribution is not pivotal and depends on the e...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Mobility in China

Yi Chen and Frank A Cowell

We examine the evidence on rank and income mobility in China during the decades immediately preceding and immediately following the millennium using panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey. We show that ran...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Do We Value Mobility?

Yoram Amiel, Michele Bernasconi, Michele Bernasconi, Frank A Cowell, Valentino Dardanoni and Valentino Dardanoni

Is there a trade-off between people's preference for income equality and income mobility? Testing for the existence of such a trade-off is difficult because mobility is a multifaceted concept. We analyse results from a q...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

The Distribution of Local Government Finance by Local Authority-Level Deprivation

Ruth Lupton, Amanda Fitzgerald and Alex Fenton

This research note describes the methodology adopted in SPCC to track the relationship between central government spending and deprivation at the local authority level, thus addressing the question, over time and under d...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

Re-visiting the conceptual framework for public/private boundaries in welfare

Tania Burchardt

Under the Conservative administration 1979-1997, there was considerable debate about the boundaries of the welfare state: what should be provided by the state, what could or should be provided through the market, what mi...Read more...

SPCC Research Note

Social Policy in a Cold Climate: A Framework for Analysing the Effects of Social Policy

Ruth Lupton, Tania Burchardt, John Hills, Kitty Stewart and Polly Vizard

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007/8, social policy and the welfare state in the UK have been undergoing a period of extraordinary change. After a decade of welfare state expansion to 2007, with part...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Can Basic Entrepreneurship Transform the Economic Lives of the Poor?

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul and Munshi Sulaiman

A new version of this paper has been published on August 2015 (Paper No EOPP 58). The world’s poorest people lack capital and skills and toil for others in occupations that others shun. Using a large-scale and long-ter...Read more...

CASEpaper

How best to measure pension adequacy

Aaron George Grech

Though the main benchmark used to assess pension reforms continues to be the expected resulting fall in future government spending, the impact of policy changes on pension adequacy is increasingly coming to the fore. As ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Motivating Knowledge Agents: Can Incentive Pay Overcome Social Distance?

Erlend Berg, Maitreesh Ghatak, R Manjula, D Rajasekhar and Sanchari Roy

This paper studies the interaction of incentive pay and social distance in the dissemination of information. We analyse theoretically as well as empirically the effect of incentive pay when agents have pro-social objecti...Read more...

CASEpaper

A question of quality: Do children from disadvantaged backgrounds receive lower quality early years education and care in England?

Ludovica Gambaro, Kitty Stewart and Jane Waldfogel

This paper examines how the quality of formal early childhood education and care is associated with children’s background. By using different indicators of quality, the research also explored how the relationship varies ...Read more...

CASEpaper

What Gives? Household Consumption Patterns and the 'Big Trade Off' with Public Consumption

Francesca Bastagli and John Hills

At the centre of politics in Britain and other countries is what is sometimes called 'the big trade-off'- where to strike the balance between private consumption and collective goods and social spending – and hence the s...Read more...

CASEbrief

Equal access to high quality early education and care? Evidence from England and lessons from other countries

Ludovica Gambaro, Kitty Stewart and Jane Waldfogel

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CASEpaper

The relationship between EU indicators of persistent and current poverty

Stephen P Jenkins and Philippe Van Kerm

The current poverty rate and the persistent poverty rate are both included in the EU’s portfolio of primary indicators of social inclusion. We show that there is a near-linear relationship between these two indicators ac...Read more...

CASEpaper

Accounting for cross-country differences in wealth inequality

Frank A Cowell, Eleni Karagiannaki and Abigail McKnight

This paper adopts a counterfactual decomposition analysis to analyse cross-country differences in the size of household wealth and levels of household wealth inequality. The findings of the paper suggest that the biggest...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

ON TESTABILITY OF COMPLEMENTARITY IN MODELS WITH MULTIPLE EQUILIBRIA

Taisuke Otsu and Yoshiyasu Rai

This paper revisits testability of complementarity in economic models with multiple equilibria studied by Echenique and Komunjer (2009). We find that Echenique and Komunjer’s (2009) testable implications on extreme quant...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Taxation and Development

Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson

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CASEpaper

On 'Consistent' Poverty

Rod Hick

The measurement of poverty as ‘consistent’ poverty offers a solution to one of the primary problems of poverty measurement within Social Policy of the last three decades. Often treated as if they were synonymous, ‘indire...Read more...

CASEpaper

Wealth accumulation in Great Britain 1995-2005: The role of house prices and the life cycle

Francesca Bastagli and John Hills

This paper examines trends in the distribution of household wealth in Great Britain from 1995 to 2005 using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The data show that wealth is very unevenly distributed and reveal a w...Read more...

CASEpaper

Mapping and measuring the distribution of household wealth: A cross-country analysis

Frank A Cowell, Eleni Karagiannaki and Abigail McKnight

In this paper we compare the level, composition and distribution of household wealth in five industrial countries: the UK, US, Italy, Finland and Sweden. We exploit the harmonized data within the Luxembourg Wealth Study,...Read more...

CASEreport

High Rise Hope

Katie Bates, Laura Lane and Anne Power

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Econometrics Paper

Testing for Structural Stability in the Whole Sample

Javier Hidalgo and Myung Hwan Seo

The paper examines a Lagrange Multiplier type test for the constancy of the parameter in general models with dependent data without imposing any arti…cial choice of the possible location of the break. In order to prove t...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Market Structure and Borrower Welfare in Microfinance

Jonathan de Quidt, Thiemo Fetzer and Maitreesh Ghatak

Motivated by recent controversies surrounding the role of commercial lenders in microfinance, we analyze borrower welfare under different market structures,considering a benevolent non-profit lender, a for-profit monopol...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Pre-Colonial Political Centralization and Contemporary Development in Uganda

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Elliott Green

The importance of pre-colonial history on contemporary African development has become an important .eld of study within development economics in recent years. In particular Gennaioli and Rainer (2007) suggest that pre-co...Read more...

CASEpaper

The effect of parental wealth on children’s outcomes in early adulthood

Eleni Karagiannaki

This paper presents the first UK estimates of the association between parental wealth during adolescence and a range of children’s outcomes in early adulthood. Parental wealth is positively associated with all outcomes e...Read more...

CASEpaper

Using play to help families learn: Evaluation of Trafford Hall’s Playing 2 Learn Programme 2008-11

Laura Lane and Liz Richardson

The report describes the results of a three-year evaluation by LSE Housing and Communities of a family learning programme called Playing 2 Learn. The Playing 2 Learn programme was open to vulnerable families from low inc...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Assessing theWelfare Effects of Unemployment Benefits Using the Regression Kink Design

Camille Landais

I investigate in this paper partial equilibrium labor supply responses to unemployment insurance (UI) in the US. I use administrative data on the universe of unemployment spells in five states from 1976 to 1984, and non-...Read more...

CASEreport

Measuring Inequality: Autonomy The degree of empowerment in decisions about one's own life

Tania Burchardt, Martin Evans and Holly Holder

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CASEpaper

Migrants, Landlords and their Uneven Experiences of the Beijing Olympic Games

Hyun Bang Shin and Bingqin Li

Hosting of mega-events such as the Olympic Games tends to be accompanied by voluminous media coverage on the negative social impact of the Games, and the people in the affected areas are often considered to be one victim...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Decentralization of Health and Education in Developing Countries: A Quality-Adjusted Review of the Empirical Literature

Anila Channa and Jean-Paul Faguet

We review empirical evidence on the ability of decentralization to enhance preference matching and technical efficiency in the provision of health and education in developing countries. Many influential surveys have foun...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Binary Choice Models with Discrete Regressors: Identification and Misspecification

Tatiana Komarova

In semiparametric binary response models, support conditions on the regressors are required to guarantee point identification of the parameter of interest. For example,one regressor is usually assumed to have continuous ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Evaluating the possible impact of pension reforms on future living standards in Europe

Aaron George Grech

Successive reforms enacted since the 1990s have dramatically changed Europe’s pensions landscape. This paper tries to assess the impact of recent reforms on the ability of systems to alleviate poverty and maintain living...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2011

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CASEpaper

Localisation and the means test: A case study of support for English students from Autumn 2012

John Hills and Ben Richards

The combination of spending cuts, efforts to protect the poorest from some of their effects, and ‘localised’ decision-making are leading to an increase in the numbers of means tests designed by lower level institutions. ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The Political Economy of Deforestation in the Tropics

Robin Burgess, Matthew Hansen, Benjamin Olken, Peter Potapov and Stefanie Sieber

Tropical deforestation accounts for almost one-…fifth of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and threatens the world’s most diverse ecosystems. The prevalence of illegal forest extraction in the tropics suggests that unde...Read more...

CASEpaper

Deliberative research as a tool to make value judgements

Tania Burchardt

The ‘deliberative turn’ in democratic theory has generated a wealth of deliberative experiments. The purpose of deliberation as a research technique (as opposed to policymaking or public consultation) is distinctive: to ...Read more...

CASEbrief

Getting the measure of fuel poverty: Executive summary

John Hills

Abstract...Read more...

CASEreport

Final report of the Hills Independent Fuel Poverty Review: Getting the Measure of Fuel Poverty

John Hills

The review confirms that fuel poverty is a serious national problem and shows that it is set to rise rapidly. It affects people with low incomes and energy costs above typical levels. It proposes a new way of measuring t...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Conscience Accounting: Emotional Dynamics and Social Behavior

Uri Gneezy, Alex Imas and Kristóf Madarász

We develop a dynamic model where people decide in the presence of moral constraints and test the predictions of the model through two experiments. Norm violations induce a temporal feeling of guilt that depreciates with ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The Legacy of Historical Conflict Evidence from Africa

Timothy Besley and Marta Reynal-Querol

There is a great deal of interest in the causes and consequences of conflict in Africa, one of the poorest areas of the world where only modest economic progress has been made. This paper asks whether post-colonial confl...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Taxation and International Migration of Superstars: Evidence from the European Football Market

Henrik Kleven, Camille Landais and Emmanuel Saez

This paper analyzes the effects of top earnings tax rates on the international migration of top football players in Europe. We construct a panel data set of top earnings tax rates, football player careers, and club perfo...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Estimating Taxable Income Responses using Danish Tax Reforms

Henrik Kleven and Esben Anton Schultz

This paper presents evidence on taxable income responses using administrative data that link tax return information to detailed socioeconomic information for the full Danish population over 25 years. The identifying vari...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

No Margin, no Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for public service delivery

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Kelsey Jack

A substantial body of research investigates the design of incentives in firms, yet less is known about incentives in organizations that hire individuals to perform tasks with positive social spillovers. We conduct a fiel...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT: INCOME DYNAMICS AND THE EVOLVING POLITICAL PREFERENCES OF FORWARD-LOOKING BAYESIAN VOTERS

John Morrow and Michael Carter

The political left turn in Latin America, which lagged its transition to liberalized market economies by a decade or more, challenges conventional economic explanations of voting behavior. While the implications of upwar...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

An Approach To Asset-Pricing Under Incomplete and Diverse Perceptions

Erik Eyster and Michele Piccione

We model a competitive market where risk-neutral traders trade one risk-free and one risky asset with limited short-selling of the risky asset. Traders use incomplete theories that give statistically correct beliefs abou...Read more...

CASEpaper

The Impact of School Context: What headteachers say

Martin Thrupp and Ruth Lupton

This paper reports the accounts of fifteen headteachers of primary schools in one local authority in the South East of England, including headteachers of schools that are amongst the most advantaged five per cent of scho...Read more...

CASEpaper

Pathways and penalties: Mothers’ employment trajectories and wage growth in the Families and Children Study

Francesca Bastagli and Kitty Stewart

This paper uses panel data from the British Families and Children Study to analyse the employment patterns of women with children and the ways in which part-time work and interruptions in paid employment influence the wa...Read more...

CASEpaper

Right to the city and critical reflections on property rights activism in China’s urban renewal contexts

Hyun Bang Shin

The rapid transformation of urban socio-spatial landscape in China has resulted in an increasing degree of frustration and discontent among local residents who face threats of demolition and eviction. This has given rise...Read more...

CASEbrief

Employment Pathways and Wage Progression for Mothers in Low-Skilled Work: Evidence from Three British Datasets

Kitty Stewart and Francesca Bastagli

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CASEpaper

The Shifting Balance of Private and Public Welfare Activity in the United Kingdom, 1979 to 2007

Daniel Edmiston

The balance between private and public sectors in welfare activity in the UK has been documented by Burchardt (1997) and Smithies (2005) for three time periods; 1979/1980, 1995/1996 and 1999/2000. The existing evidence s...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Team Incentives: Evidence From A Firm Level Experiment

Oriana Bandiera, Iwan Baranky and Imran Rasul

Many organizations rely on teamwork, and yet field evidence on the impacts of team-based incentives remains scarce. Compared to individual incentives, team incentives can affect productivity by changing both workers’ eff...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Enfranchisement and Representation: Italy 1909-1913

Valentino Larcinese

This paper presents evidence on the consequences of the 1912 introduction of 'quasiuniversal' male suffrage in Italy. The reform increased the electorate from slightly less than three million to 8,650,000 and left the el...Read more...

CASEreport

Lille City Report

Celine Kuklowsky and Bert Provan

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Development Discussion Paper

The Regulation of Land Markets: Evidence from Tenancy Reform in India

Timothy Besley, Jessica Leight, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao

While the regulation of tenancy arrangements is widespread in the developing world, evidence on how such regulation influences the long-run allocation of land and labor remains limited. To provide such evidence, this pap...Read more...

CASEreport

Report to Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture on progress in France’s former industrial cities

Bert Provan and Celine Kuklowsky

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Econometrics Paper

TESTING FOR STRUCTURAL STABILITY IN THE WHOLE SAMPLE

Javier Hidalgo and Myunghwan Seo

The paper examines a Lagrange Multiplier type test for the constancy of the parameter in general models with dependent data without imposing any artificial choice of the possible location of the break. In order to prove ...Read more...

CASEreport

Fuel Poverty: The problem and its measurement. Interim Report of the Fuel Poverty Review

John Hills

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CASEpaper

Towards the ‘Big Society’: What role for neighbourhood working? Evidence from a comparative European study

Catherine Durose, Jonathan France, Liz Richardson and Ruth Lupton

Under the New Labour government, the neighbourhood emerged prominently as a site for policy interventions and as a space for civic activity, resulting in the widespread establishment of neighbourhood-level structures for...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Does Competition Solve the Hold-up Problem?

Leonardo Felli and Kevin Roberts

In an environment in which heterogenous buyers and sellers undertake ex-ante investments, the presence of market competition for matches provides incentives for investment but may leave inefficiencies that take the form ...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Efficiency in Repeated Two-Action Games with Local Monitoring

Francesco Nava and Michele Piccione

The paper discusses community enforcement in infinitely repeated two-action games with local monitoring. Each player interacts with and observes only a fixed set of partners, of whom he is privately informed. The main re...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2010

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International Studies Paper

MEIJI JAPAN’S ASCENT TOWARDS WORLD POWER

Ian Nish

A major Japan-British Exhibition was held at the White City, Hammersmith, London, for six months in 1910. Its centenary was celebrated at a conference in the Suntory-Toyota Centre in association with the Japan Foundation...Read more...

CASEpaper

Social Housing and Social Exclusion 2000-2011

Rebecca Tunstall

By some definitions, social housing, social housing tenants are necessarily socially excluded. In other terms, in 2000, social housing tenants were at greater risk of being socially excluded than owner occupiers and priv...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Taxation and Regulation of Bonus Pay

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

We explore the consequence for taxation and regulation of bonus pay when investors are protected by taxpayers from downside risk. The paper develops a model where workers in financial sector firms make decisions about ef...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Can Market Failure Cause Political Failure?

Madhav S, Aney, Maitreesh Ghatak and Massimo Morelli

We study how inefficiencies of market failure may be further amplified by political choices made by interest groups created in the inefficient market. We take an occupational choice framework, where agents are endowed he...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Sales and Collusion in a Market with Storage

Francesco Nava and Pasquale Schiraldi

Sales are a widespread and well-known phenomenon that has been documented in several product markets. Regularities in such periodic price reductions appear to suggest that the phenomenon cannot be entirely attributed to ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Field Experiments with Firms

Oriana Bandiera, Iwan Baranky and Imran Rasul

We discuss how the use of field experiments sheds light on long standing research questions relating to firm behavior. We present insights from two classes of experiments: within and across firms, and draw common lessons...Read more...

CASEpaper

The distribution of total greenhouse gas emissions by households in the UK, and some implications for social policy

Ian Gough, Saamah Abdallah, Victoria Johnson, Josh Ryan-Collins and Cindy Smith

This paper maps the distribution of total direct and embodied emissions of greenhouse gases by households in the UK and goes on to analyse their main drivers. Previous research has studied the distribution of direct emis...Read more...

CASEreport

Building the Big Society

Rebecca Tunstall, Ruth Lupton, Anne Power and Liz Richardson

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Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

FISCAL ZONING AND SALES TAXES: DO HIGHER SALES TAXES LEAD TO MORE RETAILING AND LESS MANUFACTURING?

Daria Burnes, David Neumark and Michelle J. White

We test the hypothesis that local government officials in jurisdictions that have higher local sales taxes are more likely to use fiscal zoning to encourage retailing. We find that total retail employment is not signific...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

DECENTRALIZATION AND GOVERNANCE

Jean-Paul Faguet

The most important theoretical argument concerning decentralization is that it can improve governance by making government more accountable and responsive to the governed. Improving governance is also central to the moti...Read more...

CASEpaper

The Magnitude and Correlates of Inter-vivos Transfers in the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki

This paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey and the Attitudes to Inheritances Survey to estimate the magnitude of and the factors that are correlated with private inter-household transfers from parents t...Read more...

CASEpaper

Inequality among the Wealthy

Frank A Cowell

Using the evidence from the Luxembourg Wealth Study it appears that the distribution of wealth in the UK is considerably less than in Canada, the US or Sweden. But does this result come from an underestimate of inequalit...Read more...

CASEpaper

Estimates of the asset-effect: The search for a causal effect of assets on adult health and employment outcomes

Abigail McKnight

In this paper we seek to determine the effect of assets held in early adult life on later outcomes. We specifically look at wages, employment prospects, general health and Malaise. The identification of an asset-effect t...Read more...

CASEpaper

The impact of inheritance on the distribution of wealth: Evidence from the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki

In this paper we examine how the distribution of wealth has been changing in UK over the period 1995 to 2005 and how the sum of inheritance received between 1996-2004 contributed to the observed trends in wealth accumula...Read more...

CASEpaper

A Wealth Tax Abandoned: The role of the UK Treasury 1974-6

Howard Glennerster

The distribution of wealth is widening in many countries and with it the importance of inherited wealth. In 1974 a Labour Government came to power in the United Kingdom committed to introducing an annual wealth tax. It l...Read more...

CASEpaper

Rrecent trends in the size and the distribution of inherited wealth in the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki

In this paper we document the evolution of the annual flow of inheritances in the UK during the period 1984-2005 and provide estimates for the overall magnitude and the distribution of inherited wealth. Our results indic...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Nation-Building and Conflict in Modern Africa

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Elliott Green

Nation-building has long been seen as an important focus for postcolonial African governments. However, up until now there has been no empirical analysis of either the origins or consequences of these policies. Here we c...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

The Choice of the Personal Income Tax Base

Roger H. Gordon and Wojciech Kopczuk

Starting with Mirrlees (1971) and Vickrey (1945), the optimal tax literature has studied the design of a personal income tax. The ideal would be to tax earnings ability. Earnings ability is unobservable for tax purposes,...Read more...

CASEpaper

Fiscal costs of climate mitigation programmes in the UK: A challenge for social policy?

Sam Marden and Ian Gough

This paper asks whether the policies and programmes enacted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the UK will compete with other goals of public policy, in particular social policy goals. The Climate Change Act 2008 has ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Employment trajectories and later employment outcomes for mothers in the British Household Panel Survey: An analysis by skill level

Kitty Stewart

Maternal employment formed a central plank in the former Labour Government’s strategy to reduce child poverty. Even where potential jobs were low-skilled and low-paid, policy was explicitly work (rather than training) fi...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Inference on Power Law Spatial Trends (Running Title: Power Law Trends)

Peter M Robinson

Power law or generalized polynomial regressions with unknown real-valued exponents and coefficients, and weakly dependent errors, are considered for observations over time, space or space-time. Consistency and asymptotic...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Adapting Kernel Estimation to Uncertain Smoothness

Yulia Kotlyarova, Marcia M Schafgans and Victoria Zinde-Walsh

For local and average kernel based estimators, smoothness conditions ensure that the kernel order determines the rate at which the bias of the estimator goes to zero and thus allows the econometrician to control the rate...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Measuring Mobility

Frank A Cowell and Emmanuel Flachaire

Our new approach to mobility measurement involves separating out the valuation of positions in terms of individual status (using income, social rank, or other criteria) from the issue of movement between positions. The q...Read more...

CASEreport

Obstacles and Opportunities: Today’s children, tomorrow’s families

Anne Power, Nicola Serle and Helen Willmot

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Development Discussion Paper

IMPLEMENTING HEALTH INSURANCE FOR THE POOR: THE ROLLOUT OF RSBY IN KARNATAKA

D Rajasekhar, Erlend Berg, Maitreesh Ghatak, R Manjula and Sanchari Roy

The National Health Insurance Scheme (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, RSBY) aims to improve poor people’s access to quality health care in India. This paper looks at the implementation of the scheme in Karnataka, drawing...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

POLICY ANALYSIS WITH INCREDIBLE CERTITUDE

Charles F. Manski

Analyses of public policy regularly express certitude about the consequences of alternative policy choices. Yet policy predictions often are fragile, with conclusions resting on critical unsupported assumptions or leaps ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Growing Up in Social Housing in the New Millennium: Housing, Neighbourhoods, and Early Outcomes for Children Born in 2000

Rebecca Tunstall, Ruth Lupton, Dylan Kneale and Andrew Jenkins

This study draws on the Millennium Cohort Study to explore the housing and neighbourhood circumstances of children born in England in 2000 at the age of 5 in 2006. The majority of children experienced good housing condit...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Contractual Structure and Endogenous Matching in Partnershipso

Maitreesh Ghatak and Alexander Karaivanov

We analyze optimal contracts and optimal matching patterns in a simple model of partnership where there is a double-sided moral hazard problem and potential partners differ in their productivity in two tasks. It is possi...Read more...

CASEreport

Place Typologies and their Policy Applications

Ruth Lupton, Alex Fenton, Rebecca Tunstall and Rich Harris

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Development Discussion Paper

Contract Structure, Risk Sharing and Investment Choice

Greg Fischer

Few microfinance-funded businesses grow beyond subsistence entrepreneurship. This paper considers one possible explanation: that the structure of existing microfinance contracts may discourage risky but high-expected ret...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Fragile States and Development Policy

Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson

It is widely recognized that fragile states are key symptoms of under-development in many parts of the world. Such states are incapable of delivering basic services to their citizens and political violence is commonplace...Read more...

CASEbrief

Teenage Housing Tenure and Neighbourhoods and the Links with Adult Outcomes: Evidence from the 1970 Cohort Study

Rebecca Tunstall, Ruth Lupton, Dylan Kneale and Andrew Jenkins

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CASEreport

Teenage Housing Tenure and Neighbourhoods and the Links with Adult Outcomes: Evidence from the 1970 Cohort Study

Rebecca Tunstall, Ruth Lupton, Dylan Kneale and Andrew Jenkins

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Development Discussion Paper

Incentive and crowding out effects of food assistance: Evidence from randomized evaluation of food-for-training project in Southern Sudan

Munshi Sulaiman

Food assistance is one of the most common forms of safety net programs in postconflict situations. Besides the humanitarian and promotional roles, there are widespread scepticisms of food assistance regarding its possibl...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Trade and the Skill Premium Puzzle with Capital Market Imperfections

Roberto Bonfatti and Maitreesh Ghatak

An interesting puzzle is that trade liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s has been associated with a sharp increase in the skill premium in both developed and developing countries. This is in contrast with neoclassical t...Read more...

CASEpaper

Developing and agreeing a capability list in the British context: What can be learnt from social survey data on 'rights'?

Polly Vizard

The paper examines what can be learnt about the ‘valuation’ of freedoms and opportunities (or capabilities) using a general population social survey data source on values. On the assumption that rights can be understood ...Read more...

DARP Paper

Median Independent Inequality Orderings

Ramses H. Abul Naga and Tarik Yalcin

To date, inequality orderings for ordered response data are only suitable for comparing distributions that share a common median state. In this paper we propose a methodology for comparing distributions irrespective of t...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Asymptotic Theory for Nonparametric Regression with Spatial Data

Peter M Robinson

Nonparametric regression with spatial, or spatio-temporal, data is considered. The conditional mean of a dependent variable, given explanatory ones, is a nonparametric function, while the conditional covariance reflects ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Are there neighbourhood effects on teenage parenthood in the UK, and does it matter for policy? A review of theory and evidence

Ruth Lupton and Dylan Kneale

This paper is a forerunner to an empirical study of neighbourhood effects on teenage parenthood using the British Cohort Study (BCS70). It reviews evidence for the existence of such effects within the quantitative 'neigh...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Quantile Uncorrelation and Instrumental Regression

Tatiana Komarova, Thomas Severini and Elie Tamer

We introduce a notion of median uncorrelation that is a natural extension of mean (linear) uncorrelation. A scalar random variable Y is median uncorrelated with a kdimensional random vector X if and only if the slope fro...Read more...

DARP Paper

Tax Compliance by Firms and Audit Policy

Ralph Bayer and Frank A Cowell

Firms are usually better informed than tax authorities about market conditions and the potential profits of competitors. They may try to exploit this situation by underreporting their own taxable profits. The tax authori...Read more...

CASEpaper

Assessing the sustainability of pension reforms in Europe

Aaron George Grech

Spurred by the ageing transition, many governments have made wide-ranging reforms, dramatically changing Europe's pensions landscape. Nevertheless there remain concerns about future costs, while unease about adequacy is ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Diversity and the Power of the Elites in Democratic Societies: A Model and a Test.

Oriana Bandiera and Gilat Levy

This paper analyzes whether political outcomes in local democracies are determined by the preferences of the median - typically poor - agents or whether they reflect the wishes of the wealthy elites. A model shows that w...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Spreading the Word: Geography, Policy and University Knowledge Diffusion

Sharon Belenzon and Mark Schankerman

Using new data on citations to university patents and scientific publications, and measures of distance based on Google maps, we study how geography affects university knowledge diffusion. We show that knowledge flows fr...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Semiparametric Estimation of Locally Stationary Diffusion Models

Bonsoo Koo and Oliver Linton

This paper proposes a class of locally stationary diffusion processes. The model has a time varying but locally linear drift and a volatility coefficient that is allowed to vary over time and space. We propose estimators...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Semiparametric Estimation of Markov Decision Processeswith Continuous State Space

Sorawoot Srisuma and Oliver Linton

We propose a general two-step estimation method for the structural parameters of popular semiparametric Markovian discrete choice models that include a class of Markovian Games and allow for continuous observable state s...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Loch Linear Fitting under Near Epoch Dependence: Uniform Consistency with Convergence Rate

Degui Li, Zudi Lu and Oliver Linton

Local linear fitting is a popular nonparametric method in nonlinear statistical and econometric modelling. Lu and Linton (2007) established the point wise asymptotic distribution (central limit theorem) for the local lin...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Repayment Frequency in Microfinance Contracts with Present-Biased Borrowers

Greg Fischer and Maitreesh Ghatak

This paper analyzes the theoretical underpinnings of high-frequency repayment, a feature in nearly all microfinance contracts that has been largely overlooked by theorists. The pervasive belief among practitioners that f...Read more...

International Studies Paper

Weaknesses in Japan’s Postwar Politics

Reiko Oyama and Tomoki Takeda

Discusses Japan’s political immobilism caused by lack of strong ministerial leadership and failure of reform initiatives. Attributes it to the power of factions within political parties which reforms have failed to break...Read more...

CASEreport

Housing Futures: our homes and communities. A report for the Federation of Master Builders

Laura Lane and Anne Power

Forward by Ron Storer, President, Federation of Master Builders: The housing system is intrinsically linked to almost every major area of government policy from the economy and taxation to the environment and education. ...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Automobile Replacement: A Dynamic Structural Approach

Pasquale Schiraldi

This paper specifies and estimates a structural dynamic model of consumer demand for new and used durable goods. Its primary contribution is to provide an explicit estimation procedure for transaction costs, which are cr...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Screening with an Approximate Type Space

Kristóf Madarász and Andrea Prat

We re-visit the single-agent mechanism design problem with quasi-linear preferences, but we assume that the principal knowingly operates on the basis of only an approximate type space rather than the (potentially complex...Read more...

CASEreport

What do the public think about economic and social rights? Research Report to Inform the Debate about a Bill of Rights and a Written Constitution

Polly Vizard

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Development Discussion Paper

Thinness and Obesity: A Model of Food Consumption, Health Concerns, and Social Pressure

Davide Dragone and Luca Savorelli

The increasing concern of the policy maker about eating behavior has focused on the spread of obesity and on the evidence of a consistent number of individuals dieting despite being underweight. As the latter behavior is...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Preference Heterogeneity and Optimal Capital Taxation

Mikhail Golosov, Aleh Tsyvinsky and Matthew Weinzierl

We analytically and quantitatively examine a prominent justification for capital income taxation: goods preferred by those with high ability ought to be taxed. We study an environment where commodity taxes are allowed to...Read more...

CASEbrief

What do the public think about economic and social rights

Polly Vizard

Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Estimation of Structural Optimization Models: A Note on Identification

Sorawoot Srisuma

Bajari, Benkard and Levin (2007) propose an estimation methodology for a broad class of dynamic optimization problems. To carry out their procedure, one needs to select a set of alternative policy functions and compare t...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

The Tyranny Puzzle in Welfare Economics: An empirical investigation

Frank A Cowell, Marc Fleurbaey and Bertil Tungodden

We address a puzzle in welfare economics – the possibility that rational people may be simultaneously against two apparently con‡icting forms of “tyranny.” In fact the two types of tyranny can be reconciled but at the po...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Consumption and Cash-Flow Taxes in an International Setting

Alan J. Auerbach and Michael P. Devereux

We model the effects of consumption-type taxes which differ according to the base and location of the tax. Our model incorporates a monopolist producing and selling in two countries with three sources of rent, each in a ...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Optimal Control of Externalities in the Presence of Income Taxation

Louis Kaplow

A substantial literature examines second-best environmental policy, focusing particularly on how the Pigouvian directive that marginal taxes should equal marginal external harms needs to be modified in light of the preex...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Do Child Tax Benefits Affect the Wellbeing of Children? Evidence from Canadian Child Benefit Expansions

Kevin Milligan and Mark Stabile

A vast literature has examined the impact of family income on the health and development outcomes of children. One channel through which increased income may operate is an improvement in a family's ability to provide foo...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Statistical Inference on Regression with Spatial Dependence

Peter M Robinson and Supachoke Thawornkaiwong

Central limit theorems are developed for instrumental variables estimates of linear and semi-parametric partly linear regression models for spatial data. General forms of spatial dependence and heterogeneity in explanato...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Spatial Asset Pricing: A First Step

Francois Ortalo-Magne and Andrea Prat

People choose where to live and how much to invest in housing. Traditionally, the first decision has been the domain of spatial economics, while the second has been analyzed in finance. Spatial asset pricing is an attemp...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The Reversal of Fortune Thesis Reconsidered

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Elliott Green

Acemoglu, Johnson, & Robinson (2002) have claimed that the world income distribution underwent a 'Reversal of Fortune' from 1500 to the present, whereby formerly rich countries in what is now the developing world became ...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2009

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Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric Trending Regression with Cross-Sectional Dependence

Peter M Robinson

Panel data, whose series length T is large but whose cross-section size N need not be, are assumed to have a common time trend. The time trend is of unknown form, the model includes additive, unknown, individual-specific...Read more...

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Preference Heterogeneity and Optimal Capital Income Taxation

Mikhail Golosov, Aleh Tayvinski and Matthew Weinzierl

We analytically and quantitatively examine a prominent justi.cation for capital income taxation: goods preferred by those with high ability ought to be taxed. We study an environment where commodity taxes are allowed to ...Read more...

CASEreport

An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK - Report of the National Equality Panel

John Hills

Britain is an unequal country, more so than many other industrial countries and more so than a generation ago. This is manifest in many ways - most obviously in the gap between those who are well off and those who are le...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Community Networks and Poverty Reduction Programmes: Evidence from Bangladesh

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Selim Gulesci and Imran Rasul

Whether basic entrepreneurship can be inculcated amongst the poorest in society and serve as a route out of poverty remains an open question. We provide evidence on this issue by looking at the effects of a large-scale a...Read more...

DARP Paper

Redistributive Taxation, Public Expenditure and the Size of Government

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Joan Esteban

We introduce a model of redistributive income taxation and public expenditure. This joint treatment permits analyzing the interdependencies between the two policies: one cannot be chosen independently of the other. Empir...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Religious Organizations

Gilat Levy and Ronnie Razin

We propose a model of religious organizations which relies on the ability of such organizations to affect individual beliefs about the causality between actions in the social context and personal utility shocks. We show ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Thanks for Nothing? Not-for-Profits and Motivated Agents

Maitreesh Ghatak and Hannes Mueller

We re-examine the labor donation theory of not-for-profits and show that these organizations may exist not necessarily because motivated workers prefer to work in them, or that they dominate for-profits in terms of welfa...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric Identification in Asymmetric Second-Price Auctions: A New Approach

Tatiana Komarova

This paper proposes an approach to proving nonparametric identification for distributions of bidders' values in asymmetric second-price auctions. I consider the case when bidders have independent private values and the o...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Efficient Estimation of a Multivariate Multiplicative Volatility Model

Christian M. Hafner and Oliver Linton

We propose a multivariate generalization of the multiplicative volatility model of Engle and Rangel (2008), which has a nonparametric long run component and a unit multivariate GARCH short run dynamic component. We sugge...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

ESTIMATION OF A SEMIPARAMETRIC IGARCH(1,1) MODEL

Woocheol Kim and Oliver Linton

We propose a semiparametric IGARCH model that allows for persistence in variance but also allows for more flexible functional form. We assume that the difference of the squared process is weakly stationary. We propose an...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric Regression with a Latent Time Series

Oliver Linton, Søren Feodor Nielsen and Jens Perch Nielsen

In this paper we investigate a class of semiparametric models for panel datasets where the cross-section and time dimensions are large. Our model contains a latent time series that is to be estimated and perhaps forecast...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Gradualism in Dynamic Agenda Formation

Gilat Levy and Ronnie Razin

We analyze a dynamic model of agenda formation in which players compete in each period to put their ideal policies on the agenda. In each period, with some probability, a decision maker is called upon to take an action f...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Quantity Competition in Networked Markets Outflow and Inflow Competition

Francesco Nava

This paper investigates how quantity competition operates in economies in which a network describes the set of feasible trades. A general equilibrium model is presented in which prices and .ows of goods are endogenously ...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Second-Hand Markets and Collusion by Manufacturers of Semidurable Goods

Pasquale Schiraldi

The focus of the present work is to study the impact of the second-hand market the collusive behavior. I analyze firms’ preferences for having an active second-hand market and whether policies (i.e. leasing policy, buy-b...Read more...

CASEreport

Low Income Housing Estates: A report to Hammersmith United Charities on supporting communities, preventing social exclusion and tackling need in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

Laura Lane and Anne Power

Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Bad Apples: Political Paralysis and the Quality of Politicians

Gabriel Leon

Why do elected officials often suffer from political paralysis and fail to implement the best policies available? This paper considers a new yet intuitive explanation that focuses on the quality of the politicians compet...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Optimal Smoothing for a Computationally and Statistically Efficient Single Index Estimator

Wolfgang Härdle, Oliver Linton and Yingcun Xia

In semiparametric models it is a common approach to under-smooth the nonparametric functions in order that estimators of the finite dimensional parameters can achieve root-n consistency. The requirement of under-smoothin...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Soldiers or Bureaucrats? Conflict and the Military’s Role in Policy-Making

Gabriel Leon

One of the most striking institutional features of many less developed countries is that their militaries are closely involved in policy-making, potentially having a large impact on economic outcomes. This paper examines...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

An Alternative Way of Computing Efficient Instrumental Variable Estimators

Xiaohong Chen, David T. Jacho-Chávez and Oliver Linton

A new way of constructing efficient semiparametric instrumental variable estimators is proposed. The method involves the combination of a large number of possibly inefficient estimators rather than combining the instrume...Read more...

CASEpaper

Women’s family histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany

Maria Evandrou, Jane Falkingham and Tom Sefton

Using data from several large scale longitudinal surveys, this paper investigates the relationship between older women’s families histories and their personal incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany, By comp...Read more...

CASEpaper

Reducing the Risks to Health: The role of social protection Report of the Social Protection Task Group for the Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England Post 2010

Howard Glennerster

We demonstrate that the introduction of social protection systems as well as their generosity and coverage have significant impacts on health. Who receives the benefits within the household affects the health outcomes fo...Read more...

CASEpaper

The relationship between women’s work histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany

Tom Sefton, Jane Falkingham and Maria Evandrou

Using data from several large scale longitudinal surveys, this paper investigates the relationship between older women’s personal incomes and their work histories in the UK, US and West Germany. By comparing three countr...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric Estimation of a Polarization Measure

Gordon Anderson, Oliver Linton and Yoon-Jae Whang

This paper develops methodology for nonparametric estimation of a polarization measure due to Anderson (2004) and Anderson, Ge, and Leo (2006) based on kernel estimation techniques. We give the asymptotic distribution th...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

State Capacity, Conflict and Development

Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson

We report on an on-going project, which asks a number of questions relevant to the study of state capacity. What are the main economic and political determinants of the state’s capacity to raise revenue and support priva...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Estimating the Peace Dividend: The Impact of Violence on House Prices in Northern Ireland

Timothy Besley and Hannes Mueller

This paper exploits data on the pattern of violence across regions and over time to estimate the impact of the peace process in Northern Ireland on house prices. We begin with a linear model that estimates the average tr...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Marry for What? Caste and Mate Selection in Modern India

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Maitreesh Ghatak and Jeanne Lafortune

This paper studies the role played by caste, education and other social and economic attributes in arranged marriages among middle-class Indians. We use a unique data set on individuals who placed matrimonial advertiseme...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The de Soto Effect

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

This paper explores the consequences of creating and improving property rights so that fixed assets can be used as collateral. This has become a cause célèbre of Hernando de Soto whose views are influential in debates ab...Read more...

DARP Paper

Goodness-of-Fit: An Economic Approach

Frank A Cowell, Emmanuel Flachaire and Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay

Specific functional forms are often used in economic models of distributions; goodness-of-fit measures are used to assess whether a functional form is appropriate in the light of real-world data. Standard approaches use ...Read more...

DARP Paper

Inequality Decomposition - A Reconciliation

Frank A Cowell and Carlo V. Fiorio

We show how classic source-decomposition and subgroup-decomposition methods can be reconciled with regression methodology used in the recent literature. We also highlight some pitfalls that arise from uncritical use of t...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Do Small States Get More Federal Monies? Myth and Reality About the US Senate Malapportionment

Valentino Larcinese, Leonzio Rizzo and Cecilia Testa

We analyze the relationship between senate malapportionment and the allocation of the US federal budget to the states during the period 1978-2002. A substantial literature originating from the influential paper by ?) fin...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2008

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DARP Paper

The Class of Absolute Decomposable Inequality Measures

Kristof Bosmans and Frank A Cowell

We provide a parsimonious axiomatisation of the complete class of absolute nequality indices. Our approach uses only a weak form of decomposability and does not require a priori that the measures be differentiable. ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Property Rights and Economic Development

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

This chapter develops a unified analytical framework, drawing on and extending the existing literature on the subject, for studying the role of property rights in economic development. It addresses two fundamental and re...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The Incidence of Civil War: Theory and Evidence

Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson

This paper studies the incidence of civil war over time. We put forward a canonical model of civil war, which relates the incidence of conflict to circumstances, institutions and features of the underlying economy and po...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Uniform Bahadur Representation for Local Polynomial Estimates of M-Regression and Its Application to The Additive Model

Efang Kong, Oliver Linton and Yingcun Xia

We use local polynomial fitting to estimate the nonparametric M-regression function for strongly mixing stationary processes {(Y_i,?X_i ) } . We establish a strong uniform consistency rate for the Bahadur representation ...Read more...

CASEpaper

The Effect of Health on Consumption Decisions in Later Life: Evidence from the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki

The analysis in this paper focuses on the impact of health on the savings and consumption decisions of the elderly. In principle, there are at least five alternative channels through which health may affect consumption a...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Large-Sample Inference on Spatial Dependence

Peter M Robinson

We consider cross-sectional data that exhibit no spatial correla- tion, but are feared to be spatially dependent. We demonstrate that a spatial version of the stochastic volatility model of financial econometrics, entail...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Inference On Nonparametrically Trending Time Series With Fractional Errors

Peter M Robinson

The central limit theorem for nonparametric kernel estimates of a smooth trend, with linearly-generated errors, indicates asymptotic independence and homoscedasticity across fixed points, irrespective of whether disturba...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

The Flypaper Effect Revisited

Fernando Aragon

This paper argues that there is nothing anomalous about the flypaper effect. I develop a simple median voter model of government spending with costly tax collection that predicts the flypaper effect and provide a quantif...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Candidate nomination procedures and political selection: evidence from Latin American parties

Fernando Aragon

This paper explores empirically the role of nomination procedures on political selection and the determinants for adopting contestable selection methods such as primaries. Using data from Latin American parties, I find e...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Developments in the Analysis of Spatial Data

Peter M Robinson

Disregarding spatial dependence can invalidate methods for analyzing cross-sectional and panel data. We discuss ongoing work on developing methods that allow for, test for, or estimate, spatial dependence. Much of the st...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Correlation Testing in Time Series, Spatial and Cross-Sectional Data

Peter M Robinson

We provide a general class of tests for correlation in time series, spatial, spatiotemporal and cross-sectional data. We motivate our focus by reviewing how computational and theoretical difficulties of point estimation ...Read more...

International Studies Paper

On the periphery of the Russo-Japanese war, Part 111

Ian Nish and Mizuyo Oyama

This discussion paper is a continuation of the two previous pamphlets which appeared under the title, ‘On the Periphery of the Russo-Japanese war’. A special symposium on this topic was held in the Morishima Room on 8 Ma...Read more...

CASEpaper

Family ties: Women’s work and family histories and their association with incomes in later life in the UK

Tom Sefton, Maria Evandrou and Jane Falkingham

This paper examines the relationship between the family and work histories of older women in the UK and their individual incomes in later life, using retrospective data from the first fifteen waves of the British Househo...Read more...

DARP Paper

Catastrophic Health Expenditure and Household Well-Being

Ramses H. Abul Naga and Karine Lamiraud

According to the catastrophic health expenditure methodology a household is in catastrophe if its health out-of-pocket budget share exceeds a critical threshold. We develop a conceptual framework for addressing three que...Read more...

CASEreport

Time and Income Poverty

Tania Burchardt

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CASEpaper

The Impact of Policy Change on Job Retention and Advancement

Richard Dickens and Abigail McKnight

This paper examines the impact of the Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) on employment retention and advancement. The WFTC, which replaced Family Credit in October 1999, supplemented earnings of low paid workers living i...Read more...

CASEpaper

Assimilation of Migrants into the British Labour Market

Richard Dickens and Abigail McKnight

This paper discusses the extent to which migrants to Britain have been assimilated into the workforce. Migration into Britain has increased over the last 25 years, with a big increase in inflows in recent years. The pape...Read more...

CASEpaper

Changes in earnings inequality and mobility in Great Britain 1978/9-2005/6

Richard Dickens and Abigail McKnight

This paper examines changes in earnings inequality and mobility between 1978/9 and 2005/6 using a unique dataset that includes both those with secure patterns of employment and a wider group who experience periods withou...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Motivation and Sorting in Open Source Software Innovation

Sharon Belenzon and Mark Schankerman

This paper studies the role of intrinsic motivation, reputation and reciprocity in driving open source software innovation. We exploit the observed pattern of contributions - the 'revealed preference' of developers - to ...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Pandering Judges

Jordi Blanes i Vidal and Clare Leaver

Tenured public officials such as judges are often thought to be indifferent to the concerns of the electorate and, as a result, potentially lacking in discipline but unlikely to pander to public opinion. We investigate t...Read more...

Development Discussion Paper

Decolonization: the Role of Changing World Factor Endowments

Roberto Bonfatti

European colonialism had two key economic aspects: the extraction of colonial wealth by colonizers, and the relevance of trade for colonial economies. I build a simple model of colonialism which puts these two elements a...Read more...

DARP Paper

Statistical Inference for Multidimensional Inequality Indices

Ramses H. Abul Naga

We use the delta method to derive the large sample distribution of multidimensional inequality indices. We also present a simple method for computing standard errors and obtain explicit formulas in the context of two fam...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Smoothness Adaptive Average Derivative Estimation

Marcia M Schafgans and Victoria Zinde-Walsh

Many important models, such as index models widely used in limited dependent variables, partial linear models and nonparametric demand studies utilize estimation of average derivatives (sometimes weighted) of the conditi...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Patent Thickets and the Market for Innovation: Evidence from Settlement of Patent Disputes

Alberto Galasso and Mark Schankerman

We study how fragmentation of patent rights (‘patent thickets’) and the formation of the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affected the duration of patent disputes, and thus the speed of technology diffusion...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Statute Law or Case Law?

Luca Anderlini, Leonardo Felli and Alessandro Riboni

In a Case Law regime Courts have more flexibility than in a Statute Law regime. Since Statutes are inevitably incomplete, this confers an advantage to the Statute Law regime over the Case Law one. However, all Courts rul...Read more...

CASEreport

'Teach in' on Energy and Existing Homes - restoring neighbourhoods and slowing climate change

Anne Power, Laura Lane and Nicola Serle

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CASEreport

Report to Incommunities on the About Turn Project

Anne Power, Laura Lane and Nicola Serle

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CASEpaper

Welfare Reform in the United States: Implications for British Social Policy (with commentaries by Kitty Stewart, David Piachaud and Howard Glennerster)

James Midgley

Recent government pronouncements in the UK and above all the recent Conservative Party (2008) policy document on welfare reform suggest that US welfare reform is increasingly being taken as a model for the UK. What lesso...Read more...

Japanese Studies Programme Paper

Earnings Quality, Accruals and Subjective Goodwill Accounting

Yuko Katsuo

This paper analyses accounting accruals that may relate to earnings quality and its information content. The characteristics specifying earning quality are discussed according to research surveys of earnings quality. The...Read more...

CASEreport

Case Study 5: Belfast's Gasworks Employment Matching Service

Jorg Ploger

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CASEreport

Case Study 4: Leipzig's Municipal Job Agency

Jorg Ploger

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CASEreport

Case Study 3: Bremen's Innovation Policy

Jorg Ploger

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CASEreport

Case Study 2: Torino's Associazione Apolie drop-in centre

Astrid Winkler

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CASEreport

CASE Study 1: Sheffield's Construction JOBMatch Programme

Astrid Winkler

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Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Partisan Bias in Economic News: Evidence on the Agenda-Setting Behavior of U.S. Newspapers

Valentino Larcinese, Riccardo Puglisi and James M. Snyder, Jr.

We study the agenda-setting political behavior of a large sample of U.S. newspapers during the last decade, and the behavior of smaller samples for longer time periods. Our purpose is to examine the intensity of coverage...Read more...

CASEreport

Transforming Cities across Europe: An interim report on problems and progress

Anne Power, Jorg Ploger and Astrid Winkler

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DARP Paper

Corporate Tax Competition and Public Capital Stock

Pedro Gomes and François Pouget

This paper argues that the governmental decisions on corporate tax and public capital stock are not independent. In order to explain this relationship, we have built a general equilibrium model of corporate tax competiti...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Bootstrap Tests of Stochastic Dominance with Asymptotic Similarity on the Boundary

Oliver Linton, Kyungchul Song and Yoon-Jae Whang

We propose a new method of testing stochastic dominance which improves on existing tests based on bootstrap or subsampling. Our test requires estimation of the contact sets between the marginal distributions. Our tests h...Read more...

CASEpaper

Driven to swim with the tide? Urban redevelopment and community participation in China

Hyun Bang Shin

Over the last decade, there has been growing attention to the issue of neighbourhood governance and community participation in China. The focus has been on the extent to which community involvement in rule-making and dec...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2007

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CASEpaper

Understanding the relationship between parental income and multiple child outcomes: A decomposition analysis

Paul Gregg, Carol Propper and Elizabeth Washbrook

In this paper we explore the association between family income and children’s cognitive ability (IQ and school performance), socio-emotional outcomes (self esteem, locus of control and behavioural problems) and physical ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Are current levels of air pollution in England too high? The impact of pollution on population mortality

Katharina Janke, Carol Propper and John Henderson

We examine the relationship between common sources of airborne pollution and population mortality in present day England. The current air quality limit values are low by both historical and international standards, and t...Read more...

CASEreport

Sheffield City Report

Astrid Winkler

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CASEreport

Belfast City Report

Jorg Ploger

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CASEreport

Bilbao City Report

Jorg Ploger

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CASEreport

Leipzig City Report

Jorg Ploger

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CASEreport

Torino City Report

Astrid Winkler

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CASEreport

Tenants and their Communities: Summary report to the DCLG on the consultation with tenants on the future roles of social housing

Anne Power

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CASEreport

Communities and Demolition: Findings from a workshop at the National Communities Resource Centre

Anne Power

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CASEreport

Saint-Étienne City Report

Astrid Winkler

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Development Economics Paper

Just Rewards? Local Politics and Public Resource Allocation in South India

Timothy Besley, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao

This paper uses data on elected village councils in South India to examine the political economy of public resource allocation. We find that the pattern of policy-making reflects politicians' self-interest. Elected counc...Read more...

CASEreport

Bremen City Report

Jorg Ploger

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Econometrics Paper

Multiple Local Whittle Estimation in Stationary Systems

Peter M Robinson

Moving from univariate to bivariate jointly dependent long memory time series introduces a phase parameter (?), at the frequency of principal interest, zero; for short memory series ? = 0 automatically. The latter case h...Read more...

DARP Paper

Income Distribution and Inequality

Frank A Cowell

What are the principal issues on which research on income distribution and inequality focus? How might that focus shift in the immediate future? Prepared for the The Elgar Handbook of Socio-Economics....Read more...

DARP Paper

Distributional Orderings: An Approach with Seven Flavours

Wulf Gaertner, Frank A Cowell and Yoram Amiel

We examine individuals' distributional orderings in a number of contexts. This is done by using a questionnaire-experiment that is presented to respondents in any one of seven “flavours” or interpretations of the basic d...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Efficient Estimation of a Semiparametric Characteristic-Based Factor Model of Security Returns

Gregory Connor, Matthias Hagmann and Oliver Linton

This paper develops a new estimation procedure for characteristic-based factor models of security returns. We treat the factor model as a weighted additive nonparametric regression model, with the factor returns serving ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Inference about Realized Volatility using Infill Subsampling

Ilze Kalnina and Oliver Linton

We investigate the use of subsampling for conducting inference about the quadratic variation of a discretely observed diffusion process under an infill asymptotic scheme. We show that the usual subsampling method of Poli...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

DIAGNOSTIC TESTING FOR COINTEGRATION

Peter Robinson

We develop a sequence of tests for specifying the cointegrating rank of, possibly fractional, multiple time series. Memory parameters of observables are treated as unknown, as are those of possible cointegrating errors. ...Read more...

International Studies Paper

Bond Markets and Banks in Inter-War Japan

Makoto Kasuya

Issues of bonds increased in inter-war Japan, the main investors in bonds being banks because demand for loans declined in this period. Banks that were more tolerant of risks (that is, whose capital ratio was higher) mad...Read more...

CASEpaper

Freedom to be a Child: Commercial Pressures on Children

David Piachaud

Children’s lives have been transformed over the past century. Family incomes have increased, children lead more solitary lives, attitudes to childhood have changed, new products have been developed and commercial pressur...Read more...

CASEpaper

Welfare Reforms and Child Well-Being in the US and UK

Jane Waldfogel

This paper examines the effects of recent welfare reforms in the US and UK on the well-being of children in low-income families, looking specifically at the effects on poverty, family expenditures, and child health and d...Read more...

CASEpaper

Socio-Economic Status and Child Behaviour: Evidence from a contemporary UK cohort

Carol Propper and John A. Rigg

This paper examines whether and how socio-economic status is associated with children’s behavioural development in today’s children. Using a large cohort of English children born in the early 1990s we find significant so...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Broad Cross-License Agreements and Persuasive Patent Litigation: Theory and Evidence from the Semiconductor Industry

Alberto Galasso

In many industries broad cross-license agreements are considered a useful method to obtain freedom to operate and to avoid patent litigation. In this paper I study the previously neglected dynamic trade-off between litig...Read more...

CASEpaper

Refinancing Europe’s Higher Education through Deferred and Income-Contingent Fees: An empirical assessment using Belgian, German and UK data

Vincent Vandenberghe and O Debande

The arguments for refinancing the European Union’s (EU) higher education via higher tuition fees largely rest on preserving the profitability of the educational investment and offering deferred and income-contingent paym...Read more...

CASEpaper

Family Income and Tertiary Education Attendance across the EU: An empirical assessment using sibling data

Vincent Vandenberghe

There is plenty of evidence across the EU to suggest that young people from poorer backgrounds are less likely to attend tertiary education than their better-off peers. This correlation is often used to justify monetary ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

ON DISCRETE SAMPLING OF TIME-VARYING CONTINUOUS-TIME SYSTEMS

Peter Robinson

We consider a multivariate continuous time process, generated by a system of linear stochastic differential equations, driven by white noise and involving coefficients that possibly vary over time. The process is observa...Read more...

DARP Paper

Inequality Measurement for Ordered Response Health Data

Ramses H. Abul Naga and Tarik Yalcin

When health status is an ordered response variable, Allison and Foster (2004) postulate that a distribution Q ?exhibits more inequality than a distribution P ?if Q ?is obtained from P ?via a sequence of median preserving...Read more...

CASEreport

Social Capital within the Neighbourhood

Anne Power and Helen Willmot

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CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2006

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CASEpaper

Understanding low achievement in English schools

Geeta Gandhi Kingdon and Robert Cassen

Tens of thousands of young people leave school with no or very few qualifications in England. This paper seeks to build a fuller picture of Key Stage 4 low achievement and its correlates than available hitherto. We focus...Read more...

CASEpaper

Employment trajectories for mothers in low-skilled work: Evidence from the British Lone Parent Cohort

Kitty Stewart

UK government policy encourages mothers of young children in low-income families to enter or return to work, via tax credit subsidies and support for childcare. Maternal employment is seen a central plank in the campaign...Read more...

Development Economics Paper

Making Autocracy Work

Timothy Besley and Masayuki Kudamatsu

One of the key goals of political economy is to understand how institutional arrangements shape policy outcomes. This paper studies a comparatively neglected aspect of this - the forces that shape heterogeneous performan...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Fractional Cointegration In Stochastic Volatility Models

Afonso Gonçalves da Silva and Peter M Robinson

Asset returns are frequently assumed to be determined by one or more common factors. We consider a bivariate factor model, where the unobservable common factor and idiosyncratic errors are stationary and serially uncorre...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

SPECIFICATION TESTING FOR REGRESSION MODELS WITH DEPENDENT DATA

Javier Hidalgo

We describe and examine a consistent test for the correct specification of a regression function with dependent data. The test is based on the supremum of the difference between the parametric and nonparametric estimates...Read more...

CASEpaper

Developing a capability list: Final Recommendations of the Equalities Review Steering Group on Measurement

Polly Vizard and Tania Burchardt

In October 2007, a unified Commission on Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) will begin operation in Britain. The Commission will have responsibility for monitoring and promoting human rights and equality on the grounds of ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Definition of equality and framework for measurement: Final Recommendations of the Equalities Review Steering Group on Measurement

Tania Burchardt and Polly Vizard

In October 2007, a unified Commission on Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) will begin operation in Britain. The Commission will have responsibility for monitoring and promoting human rights and equality on the grounds of ...Read more...

CASEpaper

Child Support Awards in Britain: An analysis of data from the Families and Children Study

Stephen Morris

This paper examines the extent to which mothers that care for children where the father is non-resident have an award or agreement for child support in place. Data from the Families and Children Study are used to explore...Read more...

DARP Paper

Modelling Lorenz Curves: robust and semi-parametric issues

Frank A Cowell and Maria-Pia Victoria-Feser

Modelling Lorenz curves (LC) for stochastic dominance comparisons is central to the analysis of income distribution. It is conventional to use non-parametric statistics based on empirical income cumulants which are in th...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Group deliberation and the transformation of judgments: an impossibility result

Christian List

While a large social-choice-theoretic literature discusses the aggregation of individual judgments into collective ones, there is relatively little formal work on the transformation of individual judgments in group delib...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Estimation of Nonlinear Error Correction Models

Myung Hwan Seo

Asymptotic inference in nonlinear vector error correction models (VECM) that exhibit regime-specific short-run dynamics is nonstandard and complicated. This paper contributes the literature in several important ways. Fir...Read more...

DARP Paper

On the Measurement of Polarisation: A questionnaire study

Yoram Amiel, Frank A Cowell and Xavier Ramos

Starting from the axiomatisation of polarisation contained in Esteban and Ray (1994) and Chakravarty and Majumdar (2001) we investigate whether people’s perceptions of income polarisation is consistent with the key axiom...Read more...

CASEreport

Report on the consultation with tenants on the future of social housing at Trafford Hall

Anne Power

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Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Individual and Collective Performance and the Tenure of British Ministers 1945-1997

Samuel Berlinski, Torun Dewan and Keith Dowding

We study the effects of individual and collective ministerial performance on the length of time a minister serves in British government from 1945-97, using the number of resignation calls for a minister as an individual ...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

The Qualities of Leadership: Direction, Communication, and Obfuscation

Torun Dewan and David P. Myatt

Party activists wish to (i) advocate the best policy and yet (ii) unify behind a common party line. An activist’s understanding of his environment is based on the speeches of party leaders. A leader’s influence, measured...Read more...

DARP Paper

Modelling Vulnerability in the UK

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Frank A Cowell

In this paper we examine the concept of 'vulnerability' (Townsend 1994) within the context of income mobility of the poor. We test for the dynamics of vulnerable households in the UK using Waves 1 - 12 of the British Hou...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

SEMIPARAMETRIC ESTIMATION OF A BINARY RESPONSE MODEL WITH A CHANGE-POINT DUE TO A COVARIATE THRESHOLD

Sokbae Lee and Myunghwan Seo

This paper is concerned with semiparametric estimation of a threshold binary response model. The estimation method considered in the paper is semiparametric since the parameters for a regression function are finite-dimen...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Harnessing Success: Determinants of University Technology Licensing Performance

Sharon Belenzon and Mark Schankerman

We study the impact of incentive pay, local development objectives and government constraints on university licensing performance. We develop and test a simple contracting model of technology licensing offices, using new...Read more...

CASEreport

Ends and Means: The future roles of social housing in England

John Hills

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CASEpaper

Using the British Household Panel Survey to explore changes in housing tenure in England

Tom Sefton

Very little information exists about households’ longer-term movements between tenures. Some cross-section datasets include information on length of stay in any residence but we have no systematic study of movement over ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Efficient Estimation of the Semiparametric Spatial Autoregressive Model

Peter M Robinson

Efficient semiparametric and parametric estimates are developed for a spatial autoregressive model, containing nonstochastic explanatory variables and innovations suspected to be non-normal. The main stress is on the cas...Read more...

CASEreport

Families’ and children’s experience of sport and informal activity in Olympic areas of the East End

Rosemary Davidson and Anne Power

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Theoretical Economics Paper

The Political Economy of Housing Supply: Homeowners, Workers, and Voters

Francois Ortalo-Magne and Andrea Prat

Equilibrium of the housing market depends on a complex set of interactions between: (1) individual location decisions; (2) individual housing investment; (3) collective decisions on urban growth. We embed these three ele...Read more...

CASEpaper

Pension Policy in EU25 and its Possible Impact on Elderly Poverty

Asghar Zaidi, Aaron George Grech and Michael Fuchs

This paper reviews changes in pension policies in EU countries between 1995 and 2005 and describes how they might affect risk of poverty for future pensioner populations. The pension landscape in Europe has changed consi...Read more...

CASEpaper

Tibor Barna: The redistributive impact of taxes and social policies in the UK: 1937-2005

Howard Glennerster

Regular annual studies made by the Office of National Statistics in the UK are intended to show how far taxing household incomes and giving benefits in cash and kind to households redistributes income from rich to poor. ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Selectivity and the gender wage gap decomposition in the presence of a joint decision process

Marcia M Schafgans and Morton Stelcnery

In this paper we revisit the gender decomposition of wages in the presence of selection bias. We show that when labor market participation decisions of couples are not independent, the sample selection corrections used i...Read more...

DARP Paper

Inequality and Envy

Frank A Cowell and Udo Ebert

Using a simple axiomatic structure we characterise two classes of inequality indices - absolute and relative - that take into account “envy” in the income distribution. The concept of envy incorporated here concerns the ...Read more...

DARP Paper

Growth and inequality: a demographic explanation

Kazutoshi Miyazawa

This paper investigates the relationship between growth and inequality from a demographic point of view. In an extended model of the accidental bequest with endogenous fertility, we analyze the effects of a decrease in o...Read more...

CASEpaper

Work-Life Balance in a Low-Income Neighbourhood

Hartley Dean and Alice Coulter

‘Work-life balance’ generally refers to how people may combine paid employment with family responsibilities. The UK government’s attempts to promote work-life balance are connected to wider concerns to maximise labour-fo...Read more...

CASEpaper

The Social Protection of Rural Workers in the Construction Industry in Urban China

Bingqin Li and Huamin Peng

The construction industry is important for Chinese rural to urban migrants. Over 90% of urban construction workers are rural migrants, and over a third of all rural migrants work in construction. The construction industr...Read more...

International Studies Paper

Japanese Monarchy: Past and Present

Ben-Ami Shillony and Antony Best

Shillony: Paper examines how Japan’s imperial dynasty dependent on the male line of succession has lasted so long and analyses how it will overcome its present difficulties. An Advisory Panel was created to recommend fut...Read more...

CASEpaper

Transition from Work to Retirement in EU25

Asghar Zaidi, Mattia Makovec and Michael Fuchs

The policy agenda of extending working lives requires a holistic understanding of factors underlying the decision of older workers to withdraw from work and to retire. This brief paper presents employment patterns and tr...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

Active Courts and Menu Contracts

Luca Anderlini, Leonardo Felli and Andrew Postlewaite

We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. The model we analyze is the same as in Anderlini, Felli, and Postlewaite (2006). An active court can improve on the outcome that t...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

The Effect of Direct Democracy on Income Redistribution: Evidence for Switzerland

Lars P. Feld, Justina A.V. Fischer and Gebhard Kirchgässner

There is an intensive dispute in political economics about the impact of institutions on income redistribution. While the main focus is on comparison between different forms of representative democracy, the influence of ...Read more...

Theoretical Economics Paper

SHOULD COURTS ALWAYS ENFORCE WHAT CONTRACTING PARTIES WRITE? This paper replaces TE/2003/464

Luca Anderlini, Leonardo Felli and Andrew Postlewaite

We find an economic rationale for the common sense answer to the question in our title — courts should not always enforce what the contracting parties write. We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows ...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Leading the Party: Coordination, Direction, and Communication

Torun Dewan and David P. Myatt

Party activists face a coordination problem: a critical mass (a barrier to coordination) must advocate a single policy alternative if the party is to succeed. The need for direction is the degree to which the merits of t...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Estimating Quadratic Variation Consistently in the Presence of Correlated Measurement Error

Ilze Kalnina and Oliver Linton

We propose an econometric model that captures the e¤ects of market microstructure on a latent price process. In particular, we allow for correlation between the measurement error and the return process and we allow the m...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Identification and Nonparametric Estimation of a Transformed Additively Separable Model

David Jacho-Chávez, Arthur Lewbel and Oliver Linton

Let r (x, z) be a function that, along with its derivatives, can be consistently estimated nonparametrically. This paper discusses identification and consistent estimation of the unknown functions H, M, G and F, where r ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

ESTIMATING FEATURES OF A DISTRIBUTION FROM BINOMIAL DATA

Arthur Lewbel, Oliver Linton and DL McFadden

A statistical problem that arises in several fields is that of estimating the features of an unknown distribution, which may be conditioned on covariates, using a sample of binomial observations on whether draws from thi...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Semiparametric Estimation of a Characteristic-based Factor Model of Common Stock Returns

Gregory Connor and Oliver Linton

We introduce an alternative version of the Fama-French three-factor model of stock returns together with a new estimation methodology. We assume that the factor betas in the model are smooth nonlinear functions of observ...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Cross-Country Determinants of Life Satisfaction: Exploring Different Determinants across Groups in Society

Christian Bjørnskov, Axel Dreher and Justina A.V. Fischer

This paper explores a wide range of cross-country determinants of life satisfaction exploiting a database of 90,000 observations in 70 countries. We distinguish four groups of aggregate variables as potential determinant...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Conditional-Sum-of-Squares Estimation of Models for Stationary Time Series with Long Memory

Peter M Robinson

Employing recent results of Robinson (2005) we consider the asymptotic properties of conditional-sum-of-squares (CSS) estimates of parametric models for stationary time series with long memory. CSS estimation has been co...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

TESTING FOR STOCHASTIC MONOTONICITY

Sokbae Lee, Oliver Linton and Yoon-Jae Whang

We propose a test of the hypothesis of stochastic monotonicity. This hypothesis is of interest in many applications. Our test is based on the supremum of a rescaled U-statistic. We show that its asymptotic distribution i...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric Transformation to White Noise

Oliver Linton and Enno Mammen

We consider a semiparametric distributed lag model in which the “news impact curve” m is nonparametric but the response is dynamic through some linear filters. A special case of this is a nonparametric regression with se...Read more...

DARP Paper

Inequality: Measurement

Frank A Cowell

This article provides a brief overview of the key issues in inequality measurement and has been prepared for inclusion in the second edition of The New Palgrave....Read more...

CASEpaper

Foundations for measuring equality: A discussion paper for the Equalities Review

Tania Burchardt

The Equalities Review is an independent panel set up by the UK government in 2005 to investigate the persistence of social inequalities and to make recommendations for the development of a unified Commission for Equality...Read more...

CASEpaper

From Beveridge to Turner: Demography, Distribution and the Future of Pensions in the UK

John Hills

This article outlines the recommendations of the UK Pensions Commission, and the data and analysis on which they were based, including projections of demographic change, trends in private pension saving, and evolution of...Read more...

DARP Paper

To Be or not To Be Involved: A Questionnaire-Experimental View on Harsanyi’s Utilitarian Ethics

Yoram Amiel, Frank A Cowell and Wulf Gaertner

According to standard theory founded on Harsanyi (1953, 1955) a social welfare function can be appropriately based on the individual’s approach to choice under uncertainty. We investigate whether people really do rank di...Read more...

DARP Paper

Rethinking Inequality Decomposition: Comment

Frank A Cowell and Carlo V. Fiorio

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Economics of Industry Paper

Strategic Patenting and Software Innovation

Michael Noel and Mark Schankerman

Strategic patenting is widely believed to raise the costs of innovating, especially in industries characterised by cumulative innovation. This paper studies the effects of strategic patenting on R&D, patenting and market...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Semiparametric Estimation of Fractional Cointegration

Javier Hualde and Peter M Robinson

A semiparametric bivariate fractionally cointegrated system is considered, integration orders possibly being unknown and I (0) unobservable inputs having nonparametric spectral density. Two kinds of estimate of the coint...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Finite Sample Performance in Cointegration Analysis of Nonlinear Time Series with Long Memory

Afonso Gonçalves da Silva and Peter M Robinson

Nonlinear functions of multivariate financial time series can exhibit long memory and fractional cointegration. However, tools for analysing these phenomena have principally been justified under assumptions that are inva...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

BEING THE NEW YORK TIMES: THE POLITICAL BEHAVIOUR OF A NEWSPAPER

Riccardo Puglisi

I analyze a dataset of news from the New York Times, from 1946 to 1997. Controlling for the incumbent President's activity across issues, I find that during the presidential campaign the New York Times gives more emphasi...Read more...

CASEreport

CASE Annual Report 2005

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Econometrics Paper

Instrumental Variables Estimation of Stationary and Nonstationary Cointegrating Regressions

Peter M Robinson and M. Gerolimetto

Instrumental variables estimation is classically employed to avoid simultaneous equations bias in a stable environment. Here we use it to improve upon ordinary least squares estimation of cointegrating regressions betwee...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

TESTING MODELS OF DISTRIBUTIVE POLITICS USING EXIT POLLS TO MEASURE VOTER PREFERENCES AND PARTISANSHIP

Valentino Larcinese, James M. Snyder, Jr. and Cecilia Testa

This paper tests various hypotheses about distributive politics by studying the distribution of federal spending across U.S. states over the period 1978-2002. We improve on previous work by using survey data to measure t...Read more...

CASEpaper

Understanding socio-economic inequalities in childhood respiratory health

Carol Propper and John A. Rigg

Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood. Recent evidence has shown a socio-economic gradient in its distribution. This paper examines whether a number of factors argued to have led to a rise in the inciden...Read more...

CASEpaper

Assessing the impact of illness, caring and ethnicity on social activity

Lucinda Platt

It has long been accepted that lack of social participation in wider society is one aspect or one definition of poverty. Current concerns with the extent and distribution of social capital as both a measure of a good soc...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Information Acquisition, Ideology and Turnout: Theory and Evidence from Britain

Valentino Larcinese

The amount of political information that voters decide to acquire during an electoral campaign depends, among other things, on prior ideological beliefs about parties and/or candidates. Voters that are ex ante indifferen...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

ROOT-N-CONSISTENT ESTIMATION OF WEAK FRACTIONAL COINTEGRATION

Javier Hualde and Peter M Robinson

Empirical evidence has emerged of the possibility of fractional cointegration such that the gap, ß, between the integration order d of observable time series, and the integration order ? of cointegrating errors, is less ...Read more...

Development Economics Paper

Decentralization's Effects on Educational Outcomes in Bolivia and Colombia

Jean-Paul Faguet and Fabio Sanchez

The effects of decentralization on public sector outputs is much debated but little agreed upon. This paper compares the remarkable case of Bolivia with the more complex case of Colombia to explore decentralization’s eff...Read more...

CASEreport

Tracking Income: How working families' incomes vary through the year

John Hills, Rachel Smithies and Abigail McKnight

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DARP Paper

Anti-evasion auditing policy in the presence of common income shocks

Miguel Sanchez

When fairly homogeneous taxpayers are affected by common income shocks, a tax agency’s optimal auditing strategy consists of auditing a low-income declarer with a probability that (weakly) increases with the other taxpay...Read more...

DARP Paper

Gini, Deprivation and Complaints

Frank A Cowell

Recent insights from the philosopher Larry Temkin have suggested a new basis for the measurement of income inequality, founded on the notion of individual complaints. about income distribution. Under certain specificatio...Read more...

DARP Paper

Vulnerable Households and Variable Incomes (published in Research on Economic Inequality, vol. 13 (2006), pp. 3-30)

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Frank A Cowell

In this paper we examine the concept of “vulnerability” within the context of income mobility of the poor. We test for the dynamics of vulnerable households in the UK using Waves 1 - 12 of the British Household Panel Stu...Read more...

DARP Paper

Understanding Inequality Trends: Microsimulation Decomposition for Italy

Carlo V. Fiorio

This paper suggests overcoming some limitations of traditional inequality decomposition methods by developing a combination of Burtless (1999) and DiNardo et al. (1996), two different microsimulation methods for decompos...Read more...

CASEpaper

Exploring the effects of integrated benefit systems and active labour market policies: Evidence from Jobcentre Plus in the UK

Eleni Karagiannaki

In April 2002 Jobcentre Plus started to operate in the UK bringing together the service of the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service. Offering a fully integrated benefit claiming and work placement/job-seeking servi...Read more...

Development Economics Paper

Does Envy Destroy Social Fundamentals? The Impact of Relative Income Position on Social Capital

Justina A.V. Fischer and Benno Torgler

Research evidence on the impact of relative income position on individual attitudes and behaviour is sorely lacking. Therefore, this paper assesses such positional impact on social capital by applying 14 different measur...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Nonparametric Spectrum Estimation for Spatial Data

Peter M Robinson

Smoothed nonparametric kernel spectral density estimates are considered for stationary data observed on a d-dimensional lattice. The implications for edge effect bias of the choice of kernel and bandwidth are considered....Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Electoral Bias and Policy Choice: Theory and Evidence

Timothy Besley and Ian Preston

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DARP Paper

Decomposition of Bivariate Inequality Indices by Attributes

Ramses H. Abul Naga and Pierre-Yves Geoffard

We provide, for the class of relative bidimensional inequality indices, a decomposition of inequality into two univariate Atkinson-Kolm-Sen indices and a third statistic which depends on the joint distribution of resourc...Read more...

DARP Paper

Tax Compliance and Firms’ Strategic Interdependence

Ralph Bayer and Frank A Cowell

We focus on a relatively neglected area of the tax-compliance literature in economics, the behaviour of firms. We examine the impact of alternative audit rules on receipts from a tax on profits in the context of strategi...Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

Optimal Corporation Tax: An I.O. Approach

Luca Colombo, Paola Labrecciosa and Patrick Paul Walsh

Theory predicts that optimal effective corporation tax rates will be negatively related to industry specific sunk costs, and hence industry concentration. Governments should tax industries with monopolistic power softly....Read more...

Economics of Industry Paper

The Long and Short of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement

Daniel Trefler

The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) provides a unique window onto the effects of a reciprocal trade agreement on an industrialized economy (Canada). For industries that experienced the deepest Canadian tariff cuts...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Consistent estimation of the memory parameter for nonlinear time series

Violetta Dalla, Liudas Giraitis and Javier Hidalgo

For linear processes, semiparametric estimation of the memory parameter, based on the log-periodogram and local Whittle estimators, has been exhaustively examined and their properties are well established. However, excep...Read more...

CASEpaper

Modelling poverty by not modelling poverty: An application of a simultaneous hazards approach to the UK

Arnstein Aassve, Simon Burgess, Matt Dickson and Carol Propper

We pursue an economic approach to analysing poverty. This requires a focus on the variables that individuals can influence, such as forming or dissolving a union or having children. We argue that this indirect approach t...Read more...

DARP Paper

Static and Dynamic Poverty in Spain, 1993-2000,(published in Hacienda Pública, no 179 (2007), pp. 51-77)

Elena Bárcena-Martín and Frank A Cowell

We focus on the statics and dynamics of poverty in Spain using data from the first eight waves of the European Community Household Panel from 1994 to 2001, a period not sufficiently covered by recent literature. The resu...Read more...

CASEpaper

The Dynamics of School Attainment of England's Ethnic Minorities

Deborah Wilson, Simon Burgess and Adam Briggs

We exploit a universe dataset of state school students in England with linked test score records to document the evolution of attainment through school for different ethnic groups. The analysis yields a number of strikin...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

The Length of Ministerial Tenure in the UK 1945-1997

Samuel Berlinski, Keith Dowding and Torun Dewan

We analyse the determinants of ministerial hazard rates in the UK from 1945-1997. We focus on three sets of attributes i) personal characteristics of the minister; ii) political characteristics of the minister and iii) c...Read more...

Development Economics Paper

The Unequal Effects of Liberalization: Evidence from Dismantling the License Raj in India

Philippe Aghion, Robin Burgess, Stephen Redding and Fabrizio Zilibotti

This paper investigates whether the effects, on registered manufacturing out-put, employment, entry and investment, of dismantling the ‘license raj’ - a system of central controls regulating entry and production activity...Read more...

CASEreport

Environmental issues and human behaviour in low-income areas in the UK

Anne Power and Jake Elster

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Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Working or Shirking? A Closer Look at MPs’ Expenses and Parliamentary Attendance

Timothy Besley and Valentino Larcinese

This paper studies determinants of MPs expense claims in Parliament using the data released under the freedom of information act in 2004. Using a multiple regression framework, we correlate expenses with three sets of va...Read more...

CASEpaper

Changes in the Living Arrangements of Elderly People in Greece: 1974-1999

Eleni Karagiannaki

During the period 1974-1999 the percentage of elderly living with their children in Greece reduced from 55 per cent to about 32 per cent. In this paper we examine determinants of the decrease in intergenerational co-resi...Read more...

CASEpaper

Labour Market Disadvantage amongst Disabled People: A longitudinal perspective

John A. Rigg

Considerable cross-sectional evidence has highlighted the lower employment rates and earnings amongst disabled people in Britain. But very little is known about the progression of disabled people in employment. This stud...Read more...

CASE Brookings Census Brief

Narrowing the Gap? The trajectory of England's poor neighbourhoods, 1991-2001

Alan Berube

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Econometrics Paper

A Smoothed Least Squares Estimator For Threshold Regression Models

Myunghwan Seo and Oliver Linton

We propose a smoothed least squares estimator of the parameters of a threshold regression model. Our model generalizes that considered in Hansen (2000) to allow the thresholding to depend on a linear index of observed re...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood Estimation of ARCH(8) Models

Peter M Robinson and Paolo Zaffaroni

Strong consistency and asymptotic normality of the Gaussian pseudo-maximum likelihood estimate of the parameters in a wide class of ARCH(8) processes are established. We require the ARCH weights to decay at least hyperbo...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Women in Politics. Evidence from the Indian states

Irma Clots-Figueras

This paper uses panel data from the 16 main states in India during the period 1967- 1999 to study the effects of having higher female representation in the State Legislatures on public goods, policy and expenditure. I fi...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Arrow’s theorem in judgment aggregation

Franz Dietrich and Christian List

In response to recent work on the aggregation of individual judgments on logically connected propositions into collective judgments, it is often asked whether judgment aggregation is a special case of Arrowian preference...Read more...

DARP Paper

Hierarchic contracting

Rafael Hortala-Vallve and Miguel Sanchez

We analyze the contracting structure in a moral hazard setting with several agents where output is produced jointly and is the only contractible variable. Since the salary of each agent is a function of all agents effort...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Implementation of Anti-Discrimination Policy: Does Judicial Selection Matter?

Timothy Besley and A. Abigail Payne

One of the most striking changes in labor market policy of the past fifty years has come in the form of legislation to limit discrimination in the workplace based on race, gender, disability and age. If such measures are...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

GOVERNANCE FROM BELOW A Theory of Local Government With Two Empirical Tests

Jean-Paul Faguet

I examine decentralization through the lens of the local dynamics that it unleashes. The national effects of decentralization are simply the sum of its local-level effects. Hence to understand decentralization we must fi...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification

Stephen Redding and Daniel M. Sturm

This paper exploits the division of Germany after the Second World War and the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 as a natural experiment to provide evidence of the importance of market access for economic de...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

The Entry of NGO Schools and Girls’ Educational Outcomes in Bangladesh

Pataporn Sukontamarn

This paper uses household, school, and test score data from Bangladesh to compare and contrast the effectiveness of NGO-run and state-run schools in the provision of primary education. I study how the entry of NGOs in pr...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Strategy-proof judgment aggregation

Franz Dietrich and Christian List

In the theory of judgment aggregation on logically connected propositions, an important question remains open: Which aggregation rules are manipulable and which are strategy-proof? We define manipulability and strategy-p...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability

Timothy Besley and Andrea Prat

It has long been recognized that the media play an essential role in government accountability. However, even in the absence of censorship, the government may influence news content by maintaining a “cozy” relationship w...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Political Selection and the Quality of Government: Evidence from South India

Timothy Besley, Vijayendra Rao and Rohini Pande

This paper uses household data from India to examine the economic and social status of village politicians, and how individual and village characteristics a®ect politician behavior while in o±ce. Education increases the ...Read more...

Development Economics Paper

Political Selection and the Quality of Government: Evidence from South India

Timothy Besley, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao

This paper uses household data from India to examine the economic and social status of village politicians, and how individual and village characteristics a®ect politician behavior while in o±ce. Education increases the ...Read more...

DARP Paper

Knowledge-Based Economic Development: Mass Media and the Weightless Economy REVISED MARCH 2009

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay

We examine associations of mass media and information and communications technologies (ICT) as knowledge-based infrastructures on some economic development outcomes. We .nd that several mass media and ICT penetration var...Read more...

International Studies Paper

The Automobile in Japan

Stewart Lone and Christopher Madeley

Lone: The 1920s saw the emergence in Kansai of modern industrial urban living with the development of the underground, air services; wireless telephones, super express trains etc. Automobiles dominated major streets from...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Fiscal Restraints and Voter Welfare

Timothy Besley and Michael Smart

This paper explores the logic of fiscal restraints in a political agency model with both moral hazard and adverse selection. The role of the political process is both to discipline incumbents who may act against the publ...Read more...

DARP Paper

Growth and Inequality: A Demographic Explanation,(published in Journal of Population Economics, vol. 19 (2006), pp. 559-578)

Kazutoshi Miyazawa

This paper investigates the relationship between growth and inequality from a demographic point of view. In an extended model of the accidental bequest with endogenous fertility, we analyze the effects of a decrease in t...Read more...

DARP Paper

Income Fluctuation, Poverty and Well-Being Over Time: Theory and Application to Argentina

Guillermo Cruces

This paper studies poverty as a dynamic phenomenon, motivated by the recurring economic crises that affect developing countries and the incidence of income fluctuations on household welfare. While the increasing availabi...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

A method of moments estimator for semiparametric index models

Bas Donkers and Marcia M Schafgans

We propose an easy to use derivative based two-step estimation procedure for semi-parametric index models. In the first step various functionals involving the derivatives of the unknown function are estimated using nonpa...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Political Competition and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence from the United States

Timothy Besley, Torsten Persson and Daniel M. Sturm

One of the most cherished propositions in economics is that market competition by and large raises consumer welfare. But whether political competition has similarly virtuous consequences is far less discussed. This paper...Read more...

CASEpaper

Health Supplier Quality and the Distribution of Child Health

Carol Propper, John A. Rigg and Simon Burgess

There is emerging evidence to suggest that initial differentials between the health of poor and more affluent children in the UK do not widen over early childhood. One reason may be that through the universal public fund...Read more...

CASEpaper

Parallel lives? Ethnic segregation in schools and neighbourhoods

Simon Burgess, Deborah Wilson and Ruth Lupton

We provide evidence on the extent of ethnic segregation experienced by children across secondary schools and neighbourhoods (wards). Using 2001 Schools Census and Population Census data we employ the indices of dissimila...Read more...

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Allocating the US Federal Budget to the States: the Impact of the President

Valentino Larcinese, Leonzio Rizzo and Cecilia Testa

This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of the US federal budget allocation to the states. Departing from the existing literature that gives prominence to Congress, we carry on an empirical investigation on ...Read more...

Econometrics Paper

Modified Whittle Estimation of Multilateral Models on a Lattice

Peter M Robinson and J Vidal Sanz

In the estimation of parametric models for stationary spatial or spatio-temporal data on a d-dimensional lattice, for d >= 2, the achievement of asymptotic efficiency under Gaussianity, and asymptotic normality more gene...Read more...

International Studies Paper

On the Periphery of the Russo-Japanese War Part II

David Steeds and Ian Nish

Steeds: David Davies, a young member of a prominent Welsh commercial/industrial family, spent the period between October 1904 and January 1905 in Japan, Korea and North China. His diary of the journey presents interestin...Read more...